‘Some clubs have got that wrong’: Inside the AFL’s growing injury toll

Much as footy clubs shy away from injuries as an excuse and talk instead of new opportunities, the pinch has to and does tell.

West Coast illustrated this most graphically in the carnage of last year. In the first 11 rounds, nearly 40 per cent of their ideal team were unavailable, and they won only one game and would not win another until round 20. Sydney and Geelong also were hard hit in the first half of last season and neither were in the top eight.

This year, Richmond have won one out of 11, Carlton have wobbled at times before Thursday night’s rousing win in Adelaide and Collingwood, having defied gravity until now, are on the precipice. The anomaly, as ever, are St Kilda, who have an almost clean bill of health and are in a trough anyway.

Conversely, Sydney have the most players who have appeared in every game and made the fewest changes and sit a game-and-a-half clear on top of the ladder. Geelong, beset last year, have taken a more conservative approach than other clubs when resting players and began this season with seven straight wins before a four-loss lull.

As McRae asked, what is going on? Certainly, more concussions are being reported than previously, not because the incidence has risen, but because the obligation to report is more onerous than ever. That can only be a good thing. Moreover, concussed players are sitting out for longer, distending the figures for games missed.

As for ACLs, 18 is on the high side, but four were at one club, the Brisbane Lions, two in one game. In this, there is an element of sheer bad luck. Larkins said the range in the data he kept per year was 7-24 and the average was one per club per season.

Hamstring injuries, footy’s most notorious, are popping up at about their usual rate, a little more than one per club at any one time. AFLW star and practising physiotherapist Libby Birch said that since the hamstring was the most crucial footballer’s muscle, relied upon both for running and kicking, hamstring injuries would always be with us.

Birch noted another factor that would weigh into the stats. “This year, we’ve seen a lot more players being managed, particularly older players and players who are more prone to injury,” she said. “That’ll become more of a thing to protect players from soft-tissue injuries. That’s important so that players don’t miss six weeks at a time with big soft-tissue injuries.”

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The concern runs wider and deeper than heads and hamstrings. Though no one club will offer injury as alibi, the angst about injury is apparent in the general footy discourse. It’s straining minds as well as muscles.

Last week, Gold Coast’s Damien Hardwick, Carlton’s Michael Voss and Geelong’s Chris Scott spoke of fears of even more injury if the new, looser interpretation of holding the ball was allowed to prevail. The AFL responded with alacrity.

Separately, coaches and players revived a periodic call for shorter games to mitigate the incidence of injury. Larkins doubted this would work. Players were coached and conditioned to run now, to the point where gun Geelong goalkicker Jeremy Cameron periodically can be seen cleaning up 30 metres from the opposition goals.

“The problem with that is you’re actually going to go faster and harder if you know you’ve got less time,” he said. “I don’t see that as a natural solution. We’re dealing with a bad season, for sure, but I think it’s part of the evolution of the speed of the game.”

In any case, efforts to slow down the game never work and are half-hearted; the AFL rejoices in a fast and continuous spectacle.

Initiatives in recent years – fewer interchanges, for instance – are meant to make it harder for fatigued players to get from contest to contest, reduce congestion and soften collisions when they occur, but increase the risk of soft-tissue injuries. And the game continues to speed up anyway. “Every old player I talk to says the same: it’s so much faster than when I played,” said Larkins.

Birch said the game was not to blame. Though careful not to generalise too freely about other clubs, she saw a familiar pattern at work. “As soon as you get two or three of the same injuries, as a physio, as a high-performance manager, alarm bells start ringing as to what you’re doing in your program,” she said.

Where clumps of injuries appear, Birch detects symptoms of block training, in which clubs work harder than usual in the gym and on the running track for a certain period, perhaps even anticipating a dip in performance in that time, girding their loins to survive a 24-rounds-plus-finals season. It is not a new concept.

Birch suspects this year’s round zero might have played into this landscape, not because it made the season one week longer for some clubs, but because they would have geared a block of training to an earlier-than-usual bye in the season proper.

“It’s a really fine line,” Birch said. “In those blocks, you want to get to the line without crossing it. I think some clubs have got that wrong.”

After an injury-blighted 2023, Geelong changed their approach last pre-season. Pre-season, captain Patrick Dangerfield told of how the Cats had quadrupled their high-speed running – that is, 24 km/h-plus – and at the same time cut back the number of running session to allow for extra recovery.

“The reason behind it is to try and bulletproof hamstrings so by the time you hit games, it should feel like games are almost a de-load,” he said. It has worked with one qualification: the only hamstring patient on Geelong’s list at the moment is Dangerfield!

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Notably, only nine Geelong players have appeared in every game this year, a low number. At the Cats, this is a good rather than bad thing. It does not mean players are resting because of injuries, but to pre-empt them.

Birch held out hope for Carlton, indeed all clubs. “This is a big, bold statement, but with the blocks and the lag effect, I dare say Carlton’s string of injuries is over,” she said.

For the Blues as for all clubs, there will be another block later in the season. “I think it’s up to each club to nail their high-performance training over the off-season to prepare their players for the speed of the game.

“Ultimately, I don’t think it’s the game’s fault, it’s on each individual club to put their athletes in the best possible position to perform well and last 24 rounds.”