Ryan Burton is using the coronavirus shutdown of the AFL season to get his body completely right for when games resume and possibly run into spring
So far during the AFL shutdown Ryan Burton hasn’t been down at his local oval running laps. It’s part of a calculated plan to have the Port Adelaide defender able to hopefully play the whole of the season – whatever form that may take.
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Ryan Burton has only just started running again.
While nearly every AFL player has descended on their local oval in an attempt to keep the fitness they build-up over pre-season, waiting to get the green light to again start preparing for games, Port Adelaide’s young gun defender has so far stayed clear.
It isn’t as if the 23-year-old has been slacking, far from it actually as Burton decided to use the unforeseen break to make sure his body is ready for whatever a resumed AFL season looks like, and how long it may run for.
“We realised that we were going to have a couple of months off and thought it would be a good time to get the legs pumped up and sort of rest the knee a little bit as well and things like that,” Burton told The Advertiser.
Burton suffered a horrific knee injury in 2014 playing footy at Sacred Heart College, sustaining a tibial plateau fracture, while against the Brisbane Lions last year he strained his hamstring badly when trying to chase down Charlie Cameron.
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A desire to ensure nothing related to these two injuries don’t flare up when footy is back, especially with the possibility of crammed in games or even playing well into spring has meant Burton stayed away from the ovals until yesterday when he did a running session with Hamish Hartlett.
“I still have some time to get the ball skills back and get some running and sprinting in so I feel like I’m in a pretty good position and ready to get back into footy in the next month or two,” he said.
“It wasn’t even that sore (the knee), I had a long pre-season and if I just kept going for two months without games and we end up going longer than October then it would have been pretty much a full year on my knee which wouldn’t have helped me at all.
“They just thought it would be a good time for me to have two or three weeks of just laying a bit lower.”
While his Power teammates have been keeping fit at the ovals, Burton has been hitting the roads on two wheels.
“I’m probably riding three or four times a week,” he said.
“About 40km to 50k each time so I have a couple of mates that I ride with and my dad rides as well so there’s a good crew that we can get going.”
It isn’t just the Giant that is getting a workout, a late night splurge on some gym equipment after Port’s Round 1 win over the Gold Coast Suns has proved to be an inspired decision by Burton.
“As soon as I landed Sunday night (after the game against the Suns) I was at my parents dor dinner and they said that we might be going into lockdown soon,” Burton said.
“So I was thinking I probably should get some gym equipment just for the house and that night I ordered a heap of gym stuff and I reckon I was a day or two before the announcement (social distancing and self-isolation measures), and nobody could really get any gym stuff online.
“So I reckon I was pretty lucky.”
The increased amount of downtime is just another unexpected development in Burton’s burgeoning career.
One year into a new contract, and regarded as one of the club’s rising stars, Hawthorn put Burton on the trade table to secure Port star Chad Wingard.
In America when the decision was made, Burton was back in South Australia sooner than he expected.
But after his first season at Port Adelaide he is glad it happened.
“Obviously it wasn’t in my plans to come back (to Adelaide) this early in my career but I’m glad it’s happened and loving my time at Port Adelaide,” he said.
“I get to play for a club that I used to barrack for and playing with guys I used to idolise as a kid so it’s all worked out really well.”
When footy does come back, something that looks now like a matter of when rather than if, Burton has a simple goal.
“I’d love to play a full year,” he said.
“I guess what I’ve learnt over the past year is this team at Port Adelaide can handle something like this.
“I know the boys are training really hard and when we get back it will be really exciting to see which teams have handled the past couple of months the best and I’m looking forward to seeing how our boys can cope.”
Originally published as Ryan Burton is using the coronavirus shutdown of the AFL season to get his body completely right for when games resume and possibly run into spring