Philzsay
30 Jun 2006, 10:41
From the age today:
Absence revives passion as Lloyd fights to regain lost time
Martin Blake
June 30, 2006
AROUND 5.30 tonight, Matthew Lloyd will drive into the car park underneath Telstra Dome and begin a routine that has become familiar to him in the past two months.
Needless to say, Lloyd can't play for Essendon against the Kangaroos. He will not even play again in 2006 because of the surgery he needed to reattach the hamstring tendon in his left upper thigh to the bone.
But as captain of the Bombers, he will make his way into Essendon's pre-match meeting and have his 20 cents worth, pat a few backsides, try to engender some confidence in a group on an 11-game losing streak.
Then, as the players strip and warm up in the rooms, he will "find something to do for an hour", then return for Kevin Sheedy's final pump-up speech before they run out to play. He will take in particular roles that certain players have been given, so he can pass comment about them later.
For Lloyd, this is about all that is left. But Nathan Buckley and James Hird told him that, having missed stretches of football as captain, there was still a role to play.
"It's amazing how the younger players and even the senior players value your opinion." he said.
Eight weeks into his rehabilitation, Lloyd is feeling the kind of emotions that the sportsman who has the game ripped away from him feels. In his own words, he is "stir crazy".
Which is why the 28-year-old champion full-forward is planning a holiday on the Gold Coast when the Bombers travel north to Sydney in the next month. Since his surgery on April 24, he has been diligent about his rehabilitation, working twice a day in the gymnasium, pool and boxing ring at Windy Hill. "You train harder than normal," he said yesterday.
The holiday with his wife Lisa-Marie is for pressure release. "From a mental point of view it's been really tough. I've never experienced anything like this where I've missed a long stretch of football."
Lloyd's absence after he ripped the hamstring off the bone against the Western Bulldogs in round three has coincided with one of the worst streaks in Essendon history. That it came after beating defending premier Sydney in round one with the new captain Lloyd booting eight goals only adds to the pain.
Lloyd had spent numerous hours in the pre-season working through his method of handling the captaincy. He had made some outspoken comments about the need for Essendon to improve its on-field discipline.
All of which fell apart soon after he felt the shooting pain in the back of his left leg that day at the Docklands. Observers thought the fact that Bulldog defender Dale Morris cannoned into Lloyd as he fell, trying to mark on a hard lead, had caused the injury. In fact, Lloyd said he felt the pain momentarily before the impact.
"I've heard people say it's like being shot, and it's true. The pain was enormous. I had a bit of nausea and it sent a shock through my whole body," he said.
The rupture occurred close to the sciatic nerve, which increased the pain level. Plus there was the heavy bleeding. "My leg was three centimetres thicker with blood. Basically, we don't know why it happened. It's a freak thing."
Lloyd sought out Steve Silvagni, the Carlton legend who received a similar injury in the 1990s, for advice. Silvagni told him that although it took him six months to recover, he played every game the following year at 34 years of age.
"In our positions, full-back and full-forward, it's important that you don't lose your leg speed," he said. "That's another thing about not rushing it. I should come back and I won't have a tired body or anything like that."
Three weeks ago he resumed running under the tutelage of Essendon's conditioning man, John Quinn. Momentarily, they considered the possibility of a late-season return, but they have since resolved to take a more cautious approach. "We've ruled it out. We're making sure we put the long-term first. I know the surgeon, Julian Fella, talked about (Collingwood's) Anthony Rocca being in the same boat (in 2005). I probably would have only been available for the last two or three games anyway. It was a minimum four months' recovery.
"For the sake of two games, why not give it another six months? It's tough mentally because I'm going a bit stir crazy. Seeing 11 losses in a row has been difficult when we were set up for a good year. But my leg's feeling well and it's going as good as we could have hoped for."
Interestingly, two other players — Hawthorn's Danny Jacobs and Brisbane Lion Ash McGrath — have suffered an almost identical injury, and Lloyd believes this might not necessarily be coincidental. "Where football's gone, you're so finely tuned, you're trying to have minimal low body fat but you're trying to be strong at the same time.
"You're trying to be fast but you're trying to be strong, you're trying to have endurance. Everyone's sore and everyone's tired. I had a crook ankle going into the game and I wasn't running properly. The speed of the game is adding to injuries but I don't want to say it's why blokes are doing knees or ripping hamstrings off the bone and stuff like that. I'll be very interested in the second half of the season whether they continue and if they do, I think things have to be looked at."
As for Essendon, he believes the club would have been fighting for a top-eight spot had it not lost so many players to injury. But a close look at the opposition leads him to the conclusion that the Bombers have some work to do. "I don't think we were a top-four side on the way the Crows are travelling and teams like that. We're off that pace. I think we would have had four or five wins minimum. Had we had a bit of luck, we lost a couple of games by a few points. But I think we've got a long way to go."
He knows that when he returns in 2007, it will be as a hungry footballer. "It's (about) my passion for football and my love for the game. I'll never take another game for granted. I'll be a year older and seeing the boys flat at times, I'm desperate not to waste another second of my career because it's given me another perspective on how much I love my footy.
"One thing I did hate was the pressures of the game but now, I'd take that any day for not being able to play at all. It's something you don't get in your normal life, the adrenaline rush. Even the lows that you get when you lose, there's so many emotions I'm not getting because I don't get to challenge myself every weekend."
Absence revives passion as Lloyd fights to regain lost time
Martin Blake
June 30, 2006
AROUND 5.30 tonight, Matthew Lloyd will drive into the car park underneath Telstra Dome and begin a routine that has become familiar to him in the past two months.
Needless to say, Lloyd can't play for Essendon against the Kangaroos. He will not even play again in 2006 because of the surgery he needed to reattach the hamstring tendon in his left upper thigh to the bone.
But as captain of the Bombers, he will make his way into Essendon's pre-match meeting and have his 20 cents worth, pat a few backsides, try to engender some confidence in a group on an 11-game losing streak.
Then, as the players strip and warm up in the rooms, he will "find something to do for an hour", then return for Kevin Sheedy's final pump-up speech before they run out to play. He will take in particular roles that certain players have been given, so he can pass comment about them later.
For Lloyd, this is about all that is left. But Nathan Buckley and James Hird told him that, having missed stretches of football as captain, there was still a role to play.
"It's amazing how the younger players and even the senior players value your opinion." he said.
Eight weeks into his rehabilitation, Lloyd is feeling the kind of emotions that the sportsman who has the game ripped away from him feels. In his own words, he is "stir crazy".
Which is why the 28-year-old champion full-forward is planning a holiday on the Gold Coast when the Bombers travel north to Sydney in the next month. Since his surgery on April 24, he has been diligent about his rehabilitation, working twice a day in the gymnasium, pool and boxing ring at Windy Hill. "You train harder than normal," he said yesterday.
The holiday with his wife Lisa-Marie is for pressure release. "From a mental point of view it's been really tough. I've never experienced anything like this where I've missed a long stretch of football."
Lloyd's absence after he ripped the hamstring off the bone against the Western Bulldogs in round three has coincided with one of the worst streaks in Essendon history. That it came after beating defending premier Sydney in round one with the new captain Lloyd booting eight goals only adds to the pain.
Lloyd had spent numerous hours in the pre-season working through his method of handling the captaincy. He had made some outspoken comments about the need for Essendon to improve its on-field discipline.
All of which fell apart soon after he felt the shooting pain in the back of his left leg that day at the Docklands. Observers thought the fact that Bulldog defender Dale Morris cannoned into Lloyd as he fell, trying to mark on a hard lead, had caused the injury. In fact, Lloyd said he felt the pain momentarily before the impact.
"I've heard people say it's like being shot, and it's true. The pain was enormous. I had a bit of nausea and it sent a shock through my whole body," he said.
The rupture occurred close to the sciatic nerve, which increased the pain level. Plus there was the heavy bleeding. "My leg was three centimetres thicker with blood. Basically, we don't know why it happened. It's a freak thing."
Lloyd sought out Steve Silvagni, the Carlton legend who received a similar injury in the 1990s, for advice. Silvagni told him that although it took him six months to recover, he played every game the following year at 34 years of age.
"In our positions, full-back and full-forward, it's important that you don't lose your leg speed," he said. "That's another thing about not rushing it. I should come back and I won't have a tired body or anything like that."
Three weeks ago he resumed running under the tutelage of Essendon's conditioning man, John Quinn. Momentarily, they considered the possibility of a late-season return, but they have since resolved to take a more cautious approach. "We've ruled it out. We're making sure we put the long-term first. I know the surgeon, Julian Fella, talked about (Collingwood's) Anthony Rocca being in the same boat (in 2005). I probably would have only been available for the last two or three games anyway. It was a minimum four months' recovery.
"For the sake of two games, why not give it another six months? It's tough mentally because I'm going a bit stir crazy. Seeing 11 losses in a row has been difficult when we were set up for a good year. But my leg's feeling well and it's going as good as we could have hoped for."
Interestingly, two other players — Hawthorn's Danny Jacobs and Brisbane Lion Ash McGrath — have suffered an almost identical injury, and Lloyd believes this might not necessarily be coincidental. "Where football's gone, you're so finely tuned, you're trying to have minimal low body fat but you're trying to be strong at the same time.
"You're trying to be fast but you're trying to be strong, you're trying to have endurance. Everyone's sore and everyone's tired. I had a crook ankle going into the game and I wasn't running properly. The speed of the game is adding to injuries but I don't want to say it's why blokes are doing knees or ripping hamstrings off the bone and stuff like that. I'll be very interested in the second half of the season whether they continue and if they do, I think things have to be looked at."
As for Essendon, he believes the club would have been fighting for a top-eight spot had it not lost so many players to injury. But a close look at the opposition leads him to the conclusion that the Bombers have some work to do. "I don't think we were a top-four side on the way the Crows are travelling and teams like that. We're off that pace. I think we would have had four or five wins minimum. Had we had a bit of luck, we lost a couple of games by a few points. But I think we've got a long way to go."
He knows that when he returns in 2007, it will be as a hungry footballer. "It's (about) my passion for football and my love for the game. I'll never take another game for granted. I'll be a year older and seeing the boys flat at times, I'm desperate not to waste another second of my career because it's given me another perspective on how much I love my footy.
"One thing I did hate was the pressures of the game but now, I'd take that any day for not being able to play at all. It's something you don't get in your normal life, the adrenaline rush. Even the lows that you get when you lose, there's so many emotions I'm not getting because I don't get to challenge myself every weekend."