Front and Centre: Why changes are needed for the AFL’s injury list

Trying to decipher the injury lists across the competition is a bit like trying to wrap your head around Eurovision. Here’s what needs to change to help the fans.

Patrick Dangerfield’s hamstring is one of many mysteries on the AFL injury list. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Trying to get a grip on injuries in the AFL right now is a bit like trying to wrap your head around Eurovision.

There are players and countries you have never heard of, plus injury durations and performances that sometimes make little sense.

The chorus of confusion has been growing among Geelong fans online as the year has progressed and the casualty list has gotten deeper.

Part of the confusion is our fault in the media.

Tom Lynch is out for 6-11 weeks. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

I have to admit, as a reporter charged with following the Cats, it is my responsibility to be across the length of the players sitting on the pine at GMHBA Stadium at the moment.

And the AFL media injury list – purported to be “official” when searched on Google – has been a guessing game and was vague as it stood when this column was being penned this week.

The Cats have steadily moved away from pegging deliberate durations for their injuries in recent years and that much is clear when you find a current list of their players out.

Like a serial dater going through past relationships, it is a list made up of short, medium and long term.

Generally, a short term injury is less than a month, medium term longer than that and long term, well, is longer than that.

The unscientific method of putting those expectations out doesn’t help the fans but it suits the Cats internally.

Patrick Dangerfield is a “short term”. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

The anomalies continue as you move down the alphabetical list, with Richmond’s Tom Lynch listed as out for 6-11 weeks before last round, a gap big enough to fit a medium term injury inside it.

Perhaps it is time for a proper league-wide method of wrangling club injuries.

Clubs may push back but in this era of fan engagement, where a thirst for injury news is greater than ever with SuperCoach selectors prowling for updates at all hours, a simple mandate might make it easier.

In the NFL, before the main practice each week, a team must list every player who cannot step on the training track and even categorise those that did as either taking part fully in training or who was limited.

Then on the Friday before each weekend of matches, the league forces each franchise to list players as out, doubtful, questionable or probable.

Those rules are great for a clear understanding of players at two points of the week and would force more transparency from clubs by providing biweekly updates.

But even those rules don’t solve the issue facing Cats fans of how many weeks a “short term” hamstring will sideline Patrick Dangerfield.

Without any force from the league, Geelong is well within its rights to do as it pleases with its updates, but it’s the fans that are left with all the questions.

Until us journalists can work harder.

Originally published as Front and Centre: Why changes are needed for the AFL’s injury list