Amazed to look at the injury lists of the Preliminary Finalists after a season and a couple weeks of physically demanding Finals.
We were decimated with injury in the last 2 years but this year were usually missing 7-9 of our best 22, and at one stage 5 of our starting 6 forwards.
I think it was around round round 20 we had 17 out injured from a list of 42.
Injury played a big part in our dreadful season, and it must be noted.
https://www.afl.com.au/news/674805/medical-room-the-full-afl-injury-list-preliminary-finalsFrom Best 22 missing from Prelim teams:
DoggiesJosh Bruce season
Cody Weightman concussion
Bont will play
PortNone from best 22
MelbourneTomlison season
GeelongParfitt season
Stewart 2 weeks
Says it all doesn't it.
Lets hope Andrew Russell can add strength and muscle to the boys over summer.
I know he's careful not to allow too much muscle too early to avoid soft tissue injury and to keep speed up, but soft tissu injuries have been rife this year, so need to focus on that.
There was talk about Teague overriding Russell's recommendations and selected players with an injury cloud including Cripps (back), Williams (achilles), Saad (thigh), Martin (hamstring), Silvagni (shoulder), Docherty (shoulder), Casboult (knee)...all important players from early rounds I recall.
Maybe the players dismissed Russell's recommendations. Only the Review could tell us the truth.
Got no idea what happened to Gov, but when he pushed in a chase his hammy went...again.
Have to also face facts with some players not able to withstand the rigours of AFL football....and I'm not including Marchbank in that category because his neck injury was really serious afrom a courageous act and the ACL was just unfortunate in his first game back for 18 months.