Playing Hurt Part II: Essendon champion James Hird lifts the lid on finals injuries
James Hird never considered sitting out the 2001 Grand Final despite tearing his groin in the prelim. He reveals how the decision backfired spectacularly.
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It is nearly midnight when James Hird hears a knock at the front door.
It is August, 1999 and the Essendon champion is agonisingly close to making his long-awaited comeback from a broken navicular suffered way back in Round 2.
Hird has just returned home after watching his teammates pump West Coast by 10 goals in a Friday night meeting at the MCG.
The Brownlow medallist is licking his lips at the prospect of rejoining a top-of-the-ladder side that is 15-4 and less than a month out from finals.
Virtually his whole season has been building towards this moment.
“I got back to full-speed running and change of direction and almost match practice,” Hird tells the Herald Sun.
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“I was always coming back to play in the finals. That was always my intention.”
But the knock at the door was about to change all that.
“On the doorstep was (doctor) Bruce Reid, (physio) Bruce Connor and (high performance manager) John Quinn,” Hird says.
“They said: ‘We’ve got some bad news for you. We’re not going to let you try and make the side for finals. We’re doing this in your best interests’.”
Hird “argued and argued” before coach Kevin Sheedy intervened with the decisive vote.
“Sheeds came over the top and said: ‘We’re pulling you out of your attempt to play. We think it’s too dangerous and you might break down again, so we’re stopping you’,” he says.
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“I was furious. It was a robust debate and I cracked the shits pretty badly.
“Of course they hadn’t, but at the time I actually felt like they had betrayed me. They were the guys who were meant to support me and help get me right and I was so angry with them after all that work to get back.
“But that was an immature thought. In hindsight it was probably the right decision, with the 2000 premiership and getting over it fully, it was probably the right call.”
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If that 2000 premiership was the stuff of dreams, worse was still to come.
The Dons were 14-2 16 rounds into the 2001 season, but their back-to-back campaign would soon start to show signs of wear and tear.
The Bombers easily accounted for Richmond in the qualifying final and were rewarded with the week off before a preliminary final.
“Like recent seasons, we did a training session on the Friday night of the week off. It was a pretty tough session and I strained my groin with about 10 minutes to go,” Hird says.
“I went straight to the Doc (Reid) and told him and we did a test and he said: ‘You’ve got a small strain of your groin’. We tested it out pretty hard in the week leading into the Hawthorn prelim.
“‘Lloydy’ (Matthew Lloyd) wasn’t playing because he was suspended so almost felt like, ‘Righto, we’ve sort of got to play’.
“But I tore it again in the first 20 minutes of that game. I was playing out of full-forward and it’s a different role where you’re exploding out of the goalsquare.
“I reckon if I was playing a normal role I might have got through, but trying to lead out of those key-forward positions put more strain on it and it popped in the first quarter.”
But Sheedy was adamant his star man play the Grand Final against the new kids on the block, the Brisbane Lions, and Hird never had any thought of missing.
Michael Long (hamstring) was unavailable, but the decision to take in an underdone Hird and Mark Mercuri (ankle) backfired spectacularly.
Hird managed only 10 touches, had no influence and admitted he was mentally shot as early as the second quarter of the 26-point loss.
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“I was tagged pretty hard by Brad (Scott) and I reckon I would have got through if I’d got a bit of space, but I was given no space that day,” Hird says.
“Brad basically pushed me off the ball the whole time. I just didn’t have the strength. He absolutely smashed me that day.
“He probably got inside my head halfway through that second quarter. Normally, playing Brad I would have just got on my bike and tried to run him … but I couldn’t get off him and one-on-one he had the strength.”
Hird estimated he was somewhere between 70-80 per cent fit.
“Running in straight lines was fine. It was more changing direction or trying to hold your ground for a mark. You could warm up fine … but when you had to go you just didn’t have the power,” he says.
“That was the worst on-ground moment I’ve ever had in football, absolutely. You’re watching and you feel like you can’t do much about it.
“In hindsight I should have played the game differently. I should have played a more negating role and tried to sacrifice my own game on some of those key midfielders for Brisbane. But maybe I was a little less mature than I am now.
“I also think things are different now. As a coach you wouldn’t take in guys with that sort of injury.
“I had played with groin strains before and got away with it, so I thought I’d be able to do the same.”
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