The X-rays of Dermott Brereton’s spine that reveal footy’s savage toll
Dermott Brereton will go under the knife for his 26th major operation. He talks about why he has some misgivings about the way he chose to play. The X-rays needs to be seen to be believed.
Hawthorn
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The complicated dance that Dermott Brereton performs on his bed each morning is no delicate mating ritual but a matter of survival.
His back causes him so much pain he must roll onto his stomach then slowly slide off the edge of his bed until he can push himself upright with his arms.
“It’s a full-on procedure just to get up each day. My partner has to help me with my socks. I can’t reach down there. It’s just an awful way to live,” Brereton says with an uncharacteristic note of frustration in his voice.
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Tomorrow Brereton will enter hospital for surgery on a back that has him in agony every day.
Brereton’s spine should be aligned like a mighty skyscraper but instead looks on the verge of collapse like a teetering Jenga tower.
The 55-year-old is one of footy’s greatest warriors, his 214 games over 14 seasons full of the kind of savage moments that became his legacy.
Give them out or cop them: don’t complain, don’t explain.
Yet in a remarkable admission even Brereton now admits to moments of reflection about the toll that style has taken on his body.
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He isn’t asking for sympathy or looking for answers or putting his hand out for cash — he is just bloody sore most of the time.
Incredibly, this will be Brereton’s 26th major surgery from football, even if he only counts the ones under general anaesthetic.
“It’s due to the way I played and those days were a bit more lethal,” Brereton tells the Herald Sun.
“The old adage was if someone drops into your space as a forward you would ran through them but back in those days the centre half forward was often camped under the ball too.
“Being caught stationary at centre half forward someone would cannon into your back from behind and everyone endures it but that’s the price that comes with the position. I got up and got on with it.
“The amount of times I had that done to me … It looks innocuous and you would hold your breath as you got up, but you are talking about hundreds and hundreds of times. That adds up.”
Brereton’s surgeon will explore the damage today, having told him he has got more mileage out of his spine than any elite sportsman he had seen.
“It will be a couple of laminectomies, a cage put in there and in the next couple of years a rod put into it. I will be back within the next 2-5 years to get more done.”
Brereton is one of football’s most optimistic and boundlessly enthusiastic characters.
Yet the wistfulness in his voice is evidence that even the man whose injuries most represent a badge of honour in AFL football still has to live with them every day.
“Do I have regrets? I have got some misgivings about what has happened, and I am happy I played the way I did. I appreciate my teammates even in jest who love the way I played and played for them.
“I love the game and always will. But if I knew how sore I was going to be now I think I would still play the same way but I can’t be sure. It’s just been such a physical battle the last couple of years.”
Brereton estimates he had hundreds of painkilling injections into his knees and other body parts in the tail-end of his career, but sooner or later they needed surgical repair.
“Knees, hips, shoulders, elbows and ankles,” he says of those operations which have spare few major joints.
“My right elbow is good, both shoulders have been done. The left elbow has been done.
“My right hip has been operated on, The left hip is all right. Both knees have been done and one of my ankles has been done half a dozen times. I had my first one at 19 so we are talking 36 years of surgeries. It’s hard to remember.”
That toll has slowed Brereton down rather than stopped him.
As a cricketer captaining a bunch of youngsters down in Frankston in summer he uses deflections and nudges to accumulate runs rather than unleashing lusty blows.
His recent drop of an edge while reaching low at first slip off Nick Riewoldt in a media match had a legitimate excuse – he literally couldn’t bend down.
Play golf with Brereton at The National and while his partners are cautiously hunting errant drives in snake territory, there he is emerging from deep in the shrubs with a dozen or so balls he can use as cannon fodder practising at his farm.
He wisecracks that the injuries are all Fox Footy colleague Jason Dunstall’s fault, he forced 186cm forward Brereton to play out of position.
““We wouldn’t have been the club we were without Jason Dunstall. He came along three years after me and until I got out of the under-19s at my size I played on ball or at full forward.
“I was a good full forward. I played five game at Hawthorn and kicked 34 goals but I could play elsewhere. Dunstall became Dunstall (1254 VFL/AFL goals) so that’s all history and I have got five premiership medallions but also so many injuries.”
How Brereton was never concussed or lost consciousness in a hit is remarkable, yet he is more prone to headaches now after hundreds of what he calls “cage-rattlers”.
Once John Worsfold hit Brereton so hard in Perth that when he got up gasping for breath and literally couldn’t see straight.
“Directly in the middle of my vision I was looking at a black orb. It was like staring into a ceiling light, I had a black orb where I was trying to find the ball. I had to look off centre then use my peripheral vision so I could see the ball coming in. That was the closest I came to being knocked out.”
Yet amid the wider discussion on concussion class actions and worker’s compensation, Brereton simply wants to get better rather than look for someone else to blame.
“The Hawthorn past players association have written to me and said if you have out-of-pocket expenses send them to us and we will fix them up to you. Club-land does try to look after its own. The AFL are aware of the punishment my spine has taken but I have no words of encouragement from them. That might open up legal stuff, but nah … I wouldn’t do that because footy has been pretty good to me.”