One of the brightest young cricketers in the country has gone down playing footy for his school. And he has no regrets on taking the field.
Peake fell awkwardly in a marking contest and was taken from the field in a stretcher in Geelong Grammar’s APS football loss to Haileybury.
The 17-year-old has undergone surgery and no timeline has been set for his recovery, but Geelong Grammar is hopeful he will be ready to go for cricket season.
Peake insisted on playing school football with Geelong Grammar despite his burgeoning cricket career and has no regrets about taking the field after his significant blow.
The wunderkind shot to prominence with centuries for Vic Country at the under-17 national championships and at Premier Cricket level for Geelong before shining on the world stage for Australia at their victorious under-19 World Cup.
After being flown over to South Africa as a late inclusion, the 17-year-old hit 49 in the semi-final and an unbeaten 46 in the final as Australia saluted.
Geelong Grammar football director Troy Selwood said it may Peake’s last game of footy as his cricket commitments take hold.
Oliver Peake raises the bat after a hundred against Tasmania. Picture: Dylan Burns.
“I think the end of his footy career to be honest. He’ll just focus now on Year 12, getting the rehabilitation done and looking forward into a really exciting cricket future.
“We’ll do everything we can from a medical perspective and an academic perspective and he is going to be sorely missed even in our footy program because he is just such an amazing leader and an amazing young man who sets high standards and people just look up to him so much.
“It is not a 12-month injury or anything like that so I do feel we will suck it and see over the next two months and hope to get him ready for the start of cricket season. It is probably a bit hard to determine the exact return date would be, but it’s looking likely he could be ready for the start of summer.
“His family sent a lovely message of him saying even if he knew he was going to receive this injury over the course of the year, he still would have played footy. And he has no regrets about the decision to play footy as a year 12.”
Peake has been a livewire up forward for Geelong Grammar this season and Selwood believes he has the raw talent to play representative footy.
“The only issue Ollie has is that he didn’t have enough days in the week to be able to fit his footy in. when I watch him play he is at the level of Coates League no doubt, he just doesn’t have the ability to train and commit to the Geelong Falcons like the other kids do, which is completely understandable,” Selwood said.
“He loves his footy, his family they all love their footy as well as their cricket. I think he’ll always want to stay connected in some capacity over the coming years, what that may look like who knows.
“But in our Geelong Grammar side we don’t have a small forward who uses the ball as well as what he does and sees the game as well as what he does, so he is going to leave a big hole for the rest of the season.”
Budding AFL draft prospect Sam Lalor, who was Peake’s partner in crime in Geelong Grammar’s APS cricket premiership earlier this year, returned from a minor quad injury over the weekend and kicked two goals and had 21 touches.
The potential first-round pick has had rotten luck with injury this season and is set to play for Vic Country this Sunday.
“He had a niggle in his knee and then he had a sore spot in his foot and then he was doing some rehab running to get himself through there and his quad tightened up, that was over the last couple of weeks,” Selwood said.
“Obviously his main priority is to play really well in the upcoming championships and also do well in school footy and for GWV, we have just got to make sure we pace him and make him get back to form and fitness rather than rush it and run the risk of hurting him again.”