Western Bulldog Luke Dahlhaus refused to let an ACL injury scare derail his season
IT could have been so different for Luke Dahlhaus. The star Bulldog feared he may have suffered an ACL injury just three months ago.
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IT could have been so different for Luke Dahlhaus.
During the first quarter of the Western Bulldogs’ thrilling Round 12 win over Port Adelaide, ruckman Tom Campbell fell over the star midfielder’s legs.
Some club officials, and Dahlhaus himself, feared the three letters that every sportsperson dreads — ACL.
Having seen skipper Bob Murphy go down with exactly that in Round 3, Dahlhaus knew what it meant, but a bit of luck with where his teammate Campbell’s 106-odd kilos landed may have saved his season.
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He was part of the Bulldogs’ injury carnage but missed just six weeks with a medial ligament injury, and has been thanking his lucky stars — and the club’s medical team — ever since.
“I actually played another five minutes after doing it and I remember thinking “jeez, this feels wobbly”,” Dahlhaus said.
“I said to (club physio) Chris Bell, ‘come and have a look at this’. He moved it and I went ‘oh’. Immediately he’s gone ‘that’s a medial — six weeks’. And he was exactly right. The scans (were spot on) and it was exactly six weeks.
“I’m just thanking the lord that it wasn’t an ACL and that big Tommy Campbell didn’t land on the other side. Thank God.
“We’ve been lucky, even though we’ve had some injuries, to get (Jack) Macrae and Libba (Tom Liberatore) back as well as quick as we did. Jongy (Lin Jong) as well. Medical team … hats off to them. Wow — that’s all I can say.”
Picked up by the Bulldogs as a rookie at the end of 2010, the then-dreadlocked kid from Geelong admits he had doubts about his immediate prospects.
He was coming into a team that had just made a preliminary final, which the Dogs lost to St Kilda, but said he ultimately profited from the difficult period that ultimately saw then-coach Rodney Eade sacked.
Looking back, Dahlhaus said he now sees the “bad year” as his boon.
“There was definitely some tough times,” he said.
“Everyone goes through that building stage, and we, unfortunately when I came in, it was after the prelim and I was thinking ‘I’ve been rookied by a pretty good team here’.
“We ended up having a pretty bad year and that was the year that Rocket went out.
“It sounds bad, but it was sort of good for me in terms of being a rookie — I got that opportunity to play and there was plenty of injuries.
“I played mid-year and have been lucky enough to be playing since. So as bad as it sounds, it was probably good for me in the end. Ever since Bevo has come in, we’ve just been looking up. We’ve made the finals twice and now we’ve made the big dance.”
And what they’ve managed to achieve is indicative of the heart in the sons of the west.
“It is (the ultimate Bulldogs story),” he said.
“It’s that Bulldog spirit. We talk about it a lot. We never give up and we’ve been through a lot. The blokes who have been through those hard times, finishing 12th and 13th and that stuff … it’s going to be good to finally play in the Grand Final.”
At just 24, Dahlhaus said it’s strange to consider himself almost a veteran among the exciting young group, with the likes of Marcus Bontempelli, Lachie Hunter and Jack Macrae at times showing him the ropes.
“(Bontempelli) is only 20, by the way,” he laughed.
“You need 44 leaders and he’s one of them. He’s come in and basically shown me what to do and I’ve been here for many more years than him.”
His tenacity and useful 32 touches earned the plaudits of the media’s vote-givers in the weekend’s rampant preliminary final win over Greater Western Sydney, but Dahlhaus hadn’t quite reconciled the feeling of still being in contention this late in the piece this week.
“It’s a weird, weird, weird feeling. I’ve never had anything like this before,” he said.
“Usually at this time of year, I’m on holidays or back home with the family already for a couple of weeks. Now that I’ve had a taste, hopefully we can keep doing it.”
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Sudden-death suits him, he said, after three electric finals, and this Saturday — the biggest day of all — will be no different.
“You go out and it’s do-or-die,” Dahlhaus said of finals football.
“You either win or lose and you can’t leave anything out there. That’s my mindset going into the (finals) games. It’s pretty simple, but go out, give it your all, chase, tackle, run hard and do whatever you can to win or otherwise you’re going home.”
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