Sydney’s Tom McCartin was told by a doctor he was 99 per cent sure he’d never play footy again
He’s one of the AFL’s best young key forwards but Tom McCartin was told by a doctor his footy career was likely over basically before it even began. Plus, was he interested in being part of the Joe Daniher trade?
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Tom McCartin has revealed a doctor told him he was 99 per cent certain he would never play again during the much-publicised neck issue that threatened his career last season.
The emerging Sydney forward endured a panicked week where neurologists diagnosed a damaged artery in his neck from a head knock – only to eventually assess it as a childhood abnormality and give him the all-clear to return.
“The doctor was pretty brutal. I saw a bloke and he looked at the scan and he said: ‘that looks very similar to the lady I treated last week’,” McCartin told the Herald Sun.
“He said that would mean no contact sport. And if it doesn’t heal within 12 to 24 months I will put something in there to help blood flow but there still wouldn’t be any contact sport.
“It was a yes or no. He said he was 99 per cent sure I wouldn’t be able to play again. That was pretty scary. It was hard to comprehend at the time. He was pretty brutal and it was about a week between that and a scan which showed I was sweet.”
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Eventually an angiogram would get to the root of McCartin’s issues after they flared during an intra-club collision with Luke Parker.
“Me and ‘Parksy’ just collided heads and I was a bit knocked up from it, I just didn’t recover from it and I ended up getting a scan that showed something,” he said.
“He felt a bit bad. He kept messaging me and calling me and saying, ‘what’s going on mate’.
“I went under general (anaesthetic) so I was still a bit out of it and it took me a while to come to. And (the doctor) just said, ‘you are sweet mate, it’s all good’. I was like, ‘what?’.
“I was pretty rattled to be honest. It took me a good day or two to really soak in.
“To being prepared to not play and being told I was sweet after being told I was 99 per cent not playing again, it took a while to get my mindset back to being ready to play. So it was a weird week but a good one.”
The youngest player in his draft year has already notched 35 games as a swingman with a massive tank and a fierce attack on the ball, settled into attack again this year after a stint down back last year.
Based in the beachside Maroubra, he is being denied his trio of swim-and-sauna sessions at Bondi’s Icebergs ocean pool right now.
As the Joe Daniher trade foundered last year he saw his name mentioned in Twitter dispatches as a possible trade.
Yet Sydney didn’t even consider it and for any Victorian clubs hopeful of enticing him home once his contract runs out in 2021, he says he “definitely” sees himself as a long-term Swan.
“I love it up here. A few boys’ names got thrown up on Twitter as part of the trade but I didn’t take too much notice of it. I am happy staying here so it’s a win-win,” he said.
“We got a good young group coming up and I don’t see myself anywhere else.”
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