It may have taken more than half of the season for the rest of the world to acknowledge the severity of the injury plague infiltrating the Gold Coast SUNS this year, but the damage was real. It was epic in proportion size, and epic in the quality it swept aside.
By season’s end, the injury plight was widely documented. It centred around who wasn’t available for all of, or the majority of the 2015 season. The who focused on four names: Gary Ablett, David Swallow, Dion Prestia and Jaeger O’Meara.
The midfield quartet combined for a grand total of 20 games with O’Meara not registering a single appearance after suffering a serious knee injury on Easter Saturday in his first game back from radical off-season knee surgery. The incident occurred an hour before the SUNS begun their season in round one – a devastating way to start to the new campaign.
Much has been written and spoken about Ablett this season, with his shoulder dominating football forums and filling newspaper column inches for much of the first part of the year. The dual Brownlow medallist returned in round 14 to face North Melbourne, where he strung together three consecutive 30 possession hauls, before disaster struck again.
In the dying minutes of the opening quarter against Adelaide in round 17, Ablett’s season was brought to a close in another flashbulb moment. Gold Coast’s captain suffered a knee injury, that whilst nowhere near as severe as his shoulder injury 12 months earlier, it meant his season was over after just over five appearances.
Before the eight-time All Australian re-joined the exodus of midfield stars, Swallow and Prestia had already been sidelined with long-term knee injuries, with Swallow re-injuring his poster cruciate ligament in round 15 – just two weeks after returning from a 10-week lay off.
The 2014 Club Champion played the opening four games of the season before scans showed in the aftermath of the Greater Western Sydney game that he had strained his PCL. Swallow returned in round 14 and immediately looked at home, although his return was short lived, with the star midfielder missing the remainder of the year and requiring surgery on both his knees.
Amid the carnage of the opening month, Prestia continued to do what he does best: collect leather on command and extract the ball from stoppages. He was one player who stood up during a tumultuous start to the season, with his consistency a feature of the first eight weeks.
Then, late in the game against Collingwood in round eight, the ball magnet tore the lateral meniscus in his left knee, which drew the curtains on his season prematurely. Prestia wasn’t carried from the ground or involved in a highly scrutinised incident, so it didn’t appear that the damage was as bad as it was until it was confirmed. By round nine, none of the four guns were available for selection, emphasising the degree of decimation.
It’s definitely unfortunate, but hardly rare to lose one of your premier midfielders for a season or for a large chunk of football. But, to lose your four best midfielders for almost an entire season is implausible. It never, ever happens. But, that’s precisely what happened at the SUNS this season. A bitter pill to swallow, even now.
