AFL injury news: Lance Franklin suffers another pre-season setback, Jack Viney has foot surgery
The long road back to fitness for ageing Sydney superstar Lance Franklin has hit another snag. INJURY NEWS
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Sydney superstar Lance Franklin has suffered yet another injury setback in pre-season training.
Swans coach John Longmire confirmed the 34-year-old, who has been in the rehabilitation group in recent weeks, reported a calf issue last Friday that had set him back “about a week”.
Franklin, who has two seasons left on his massive nine-year contract, failed to play a game last season as hamstring and groin injuries kept him sidelined.
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Longmire said “bumps” were expected as they tried to get the star forward back on the park.
“His calf tightened up a little bit on Friday, about halfway through the session,” Longmire said.
“(It) is to be expected that little bumps will pop up every now and then.
“That was only Friday and has probably put him back about a week, and we‘ll get him going next week.”
But the Swans couldn’t confirm whether Franklin, who has played just one game since June 2019, would be ready for Round 1 on March 20.
“He‘s gone right through the off-season (and) right throughout Christmas and done a power of work and got himself really strong right through that area of his body,” Longmire said.
“That‘s the main thing, as long as we continue to go forward in that area
“We try and make sure that day by day he‘s tracking the right way, which he has been.
“He‘s been doing a power of work and coming along really well.”
STAR DEMON SENT FOR FOOT SURGERY
—Nick Smart
Melbourne star Jack Viney has undergone surgery on his left foot, less than two months before the start of the 2021 season.
The midfielder has undergone a small procedure to relieve some foot soreness in his left plantar fascia.
The minor surgery, which involved a partial release of the plantar fascia, took place on Friday and didn’t require an overnight stay in hospital.
It is the different foot to the one that he had surgery on in 2017.
Melbourne football boss Alan Richardson told the Demons website he did not expect the midfield bull to miss the start of the season.
“Jack had some lingering soreness in his foot which has caused some discomfort and we decided that it was best to treat this now prior to the season commencing,” Richardson said.
“The plan is for Jack to commence off legs conditioning on Monday, with the aim to be back running in approximately two weeks.
“We are confident that this minor setback won’t impact Jack’s ability to be ready to go for the start of our season.”
Viney has this week re-elected as vice-captain, alongside skipper Max Gawn, for the 2021 season.
LEG BREAK WON’T STOP GEARY’S CAPTAINCY BID
—Glenn McFarlane
Jarryn Geary’s second broken leg in the past 18 months won’t impact on his capacity to lead the club if he is selected captain for a fifth successive season, according to St Kilda chief operating officer Simon Lethlean.
The 32-year-old fractured his left fibula at training on Friday morning – the same leg he broke in China in 2019 – and was operated on hours later with Lethlean saying the veteran was committed to returning as soon as possible.
Geary took a “hanger” in a match simulation session before a teammate landed back on his leg.
The scans showed a “clean” fracture with surgeons putting a plate into his leg to “knit” the bone back together.
Geary, who led the Saints to their first finals series in almost a decade last year, has had a luckless run with injuries in recent seasons.
The heart-and-soul Saint played 16 matches in 2020, missing three games due to injury.
But his 2019 season was ravaged by injury, when he had emergency compartmental surgery following the Round 5 clash with Melbourne before breaking his leg in the Shanghai clash with Port Adelaide on his return in Round 11.
“I do feel for him, he has always got something to deal with, but he is one of the toughest guys we have got,” Lethlean said.
St Kilda will finalise its leadership roles in the coming weeks, but the club said Geary’s freak injury won’t hinder his capacity to lead if he wants to remain skipper.
“This won’t affect Gears’ captaincy, I wouldn’t have thought, unless he feels it does,” Lethlean said.
“We will determine our leadership group first (in the coming weeks) and Gears will certainly be in that.”
Geary enters 2021 – his 14th season with the club – on a one-year deal, but the club is hopeful this setback won’t keep him out for long.
“He will obviously need a bit of time to get back into match fitness, but he is a pretty fit guy and he rehabs really well,” Lethlean said.
“We have seen him come back from these sorts of things before.”
“He actually went for a hanger. I am not sure what he was doing. He took quite a big grab and took a chest mark and landed.
“The player in front was unbalanced and landed back on him. He has had a great pre-season. He is one of our best athletes and fittest runners … he won’t take long to get up and running.”
MODIFIED ROLE TO EASE DANGER’S GROIN STRESS
Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield has revealed he could play forward more frequently early in the 2021 season as he works to overcome the groin soreness he carried throughout much of last season, including the Grand Final loss to Richmond.
Dangerfield remains hopeful of being ready to take on Adelaide in the Cats’ Round 1 clash, but won’t risk a return if he isn’t fully prepared for the March 20 clash.
Speaking on Thursday to the Herald Sun as the club locked in another long-term sponsorship deal with Ford, the 30-year-old midfielder said he would continue to make regular trips to Adelaide to see renowned groin/hip expert Steve Saunders.
“It’s getting there,” Dangerfield said of his groin soreness, conceding for the first time that the issue had hampered his effectiveness “for a while now”.
“Round 1 is a target and I don’t think I am at any risk of missing that, but I am also not bound by that (time),” he said.
“It will be ready when it is ready. I have had enough experience and longevity in the game to know Round 1 is not the be all and end all.
“If you lose Round 1 … there are still 21 games to go.”
He is hoping to “get back to a small portion of training at some stage of the next couple of weeks.”
His slower-than-usual build up to the season could see him spend more time forward – where he can be a serious weapon for the Cats – in the opening month.
“It definitely might (impact on positioning early in the season),” he said.
“We have seen a progression from month to month now, so if everything keeps progressing the way it is going now, the signs are really, really good.
“But you don’t count on regressions … it all just depends on what happens.
“It is about balancing getting back into main training and the cutting and changing (of) direction. It is balancing that with the work and conditioning to play over a long period of time, with less interchange and running hard as a midfielder.”
He said Saunders – who previously worked with Adelaide and North Melbourne, and has had great success with a host of AFL players with groin and hip injuries – would continue to assist him in the coming weeks.
“The borders are open at the moment, so yeah I’ve been flying there (Adelaide) a couple of times a week,” he said.
“Within the AFL, most players who have had any significant issues throughout their careers over the past 20 years have seen him at some stage.
“He has a wealth of experience in that field and it is a really specific one that you need to get right or it can linger for a long time, which I have experienced.”
Dangerfield said he had come to terms with the club’s final term fade-out to Richmond in last year’s Grand Final, but had been buoyed by the recruitment of Jeremy Cameron, Isaac Smith and Shaun Higgins to boost the club’s overall depth.
“(The desire to win a flag) is the same, you are obviously closer when you make a Grand Final and lose it than when you lose a prelim and you are not in it,” he said.
“There is a bit of a view that you are no good if you lose a Grand Final. (But) the reality is you have progressed further than 16 other sides.
“It is disappointing, but it would have been harder to swallow if we had not had three pretty handy players walk through the door.”
Dangerfield, who is also the AFL Players Association president, welcomed more research and debate on the impact and effects of concussion in the wake of the late Shane Tuck’s alarming CTE findings.
The AFL is set to overhaul its “return to play” protocols ahead of the 2021 season as the league looks to minimise the impact of concussion.
“We need to do as much as we can to make the game as safe as possible but we also need to understand that it is not one-size-fits-all when it comes to concussion,” Dangerfield said.
“There are still so many things that we don’t know about concussion and the effects of it, and every individual is going to be different.”
“The reality is that everyone reacts differently and you can’t treat everyone the same.”
He said the club’s ongoing relationship with Ford – which dates back to 1925, the year of the club’s first VFL flag – was extraordinary.
“You think globally how old sport is around the world and yet a little town that is Geelong has a relationship (with Ford) that has lasted longer than any other in professional sport,” he said.
ZIEBELL EMBRACES SURPRISE ROLE
– Matt Turner
North Melbourne veteran Jack Ziebell says the club’s experienced defenders are helping him adjust to a new role at halfback this year.
New Kangaroos coach David Noble floated the idea of a positional change to Ziebell before Christmas and the inside midfielder was open to a switch after his injury-hampered 2020 campaign.
Ziebell played across halfback sparingly as a junior, then in a few games during his debut AFL season and again a couple of years ago when they were short there.
The 29-year-old said he was still learning the ropes of the role.
“I’ve got some really experienced defenders — Robbie Tarrant, Josh Walker, Aidan Corr, Luke McDonald also at halfback — around me … and they’ve been awesome for me,” Ziebell said.
“I was quite excited to get down there the first couple of weeks of pre-season training and after a week and a bit down there now, I’ve learnt so much.”
Ziebell featured in just eight games last year due to hamstring problems as the Kangaroos finished the campaign second-bottom with a 3-14 record.
Four months on, he is on track to complete a full pre-season, which is symbolic of the club’s injury list.
“A big change last year from the last couple of years has been our availability at this time of year,” he said.
“Last time at times throughout the year we picked from 25 or 26 players to field a side.
“This year we’ve had just about everyone training most sessions, which is something I haven’t seen at the footy club for four or five years.
“If that continues we’re going to have some good availability come Round 1 and plenty of guys pushing for selection.”
One player who is missing is on-baller Trent Dumont, who is recovering from a calf tweak over Christmas.
“He’s already done the majority of his rehab away from the group and he’ll start joining in the next few weeks, which is good to hear because he’s an integral part of the team,” Ziebell said.
Charlie Comben is set to have a delayed start to his season after sustaining a stress fracture in his leg.
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