When West Coast’s Eric McKenzie and Bulldog Tom Liberatore had their seasons ruined by crumpled knees in the first round of AFL practices matches last weekend, many began questioning the worth of holding a pre-season competition at all.
Leading the charge was Liberatore’s teammate, Will Minson.
Speaking on radio earlier in the week, the Bulldogs’ ruckman expressed what most AFL players probably think – that they don’t want to get injured in a pre-season game.
“To come out and last three minutes in a practice match (like Liberatore did), that’s just what every player goes into a game thinking ‘I hope that doesn’t happen, I just want to get through and the real stuff’s in a few weeks’ time’,” Minson said.
“No-one wants to get injured in the NAB Cup.”
He went on to say that he’d be more than happy to forego the pre-season competition altogether and just jump straight into the season proper.
“You want to be playing games of football that count,” he mused, “and games of football that are going to put you on the premiership ladder.”
It is an easy sentiment to understand, especially when all the blood, sweat and tears players have put into their training since last November is geared towards making an impact on the up-and-coming season. To have that stolen from you in a scratch match must be devastating.
Despite the AFL trying to glorify its pre-season competition by bestowing it with the rather grand title of ‘NAB Challenge’, it really counts for nothing.
As a spectacle, these games are so far removed from the high-octane clashes of the season proper as to be little more than a yawn – especially if your team is not playing.
And yet they are a necessary evil.
Melbourne coach Paul Roos, while sympathetic to the needs of the players, is also aware of how important these pre-season games are in getting a team prepared for the coming year.
“I just don’t think you can go from doing nothing to playing a game. The jump would be just too dramatic, the injury rate would be enormous and the standard of footy would be pretty ordinary,” Roos said.
“You hate to see guys get injured. No-one likes to see it but unfortunately that is the industry we’re in.”
While he may be selling the players short by saying that the football produced would be ordinary (remember we are talking about full-time professional footballers who basically live, eat, sleep and dream footy), his closing comment about injuries being a part of the football industry is an unavoidable truth.
We must not forget that, practice games or not, players are still going to be injured during the pre-season. Roos has already lost Christian Petracca, the number two pick in last year’s draft, to a season-ending knee injury – one that occurred at training.
And who could forget the sickening head injury that put Adelaide’s Brent Reilly into intensive care last month? Again, the incident, which left the Crow with multiple skull fractures, occurred at training.
Practice games or not, it is impossible to completely wrap players in cotton wool. We can tinker with the rules to make the playing field safer for the players, but it is impossible to eliminate all risk, especially when body contact isn’t always the reason for injury.
How many times have we seen a knee crumple just because a player has made a change in direction? How many times have we seen a hamstring pop during a solo run?
Practice games may be mundane, they may even be akin to taking your sister out to a nightclub (as one AFL player once stated), but they are still a vital component of a team’s preparation for the coming season.
Our game has brought fame and glory to many of its participants. Unfortunately it has also brought sorrow and heartbreak to many others. As Paul Roos says, it is the nature of the industry. Doing away with practice games will not change that.
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