CO-CAPTAIN Jack Trengove says he didn’t realise how much his foot stress fracture would hinder him until he returned to the field last year.
Trengove, who suffered the injury on the eve of last December’s pre-season camp to Darwin, missed much of the post-Christmas pre-season.
“In hindsight, I probably came back too quickly or too fast in the whole scheme of things,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“If I had my time again, I’d spend a couple more weeks rebuilding and getting that match fitness … but I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to get back for the start of the season.
“In the end, I might’ve come back a week or two early, but it is what it is. I felt as the year was progressing along that I was slowly improving and it’s one of those ones where you get to the end of the season and from a club point of view, it’s one of those seasons, which we needed to end, when it did.
“But I wanted it to keep going, so I could keep trying to find playing to my potential and hopefully I can start doing that over the next couple of years.”
He returned in round two and played every match, except round seven, when he was sidelined with a calf injury.
But he said it was a challenge to play almost the entire season without a full pre-season.
“Previously, I’ve been pretty fortunate in the past and I’ve never really missed any training for an extended period of time. The foot was definitely the first time it had happened to me. At the time, I didn’t realise how much it would affect me, missing the amount of pre-season I did,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“There’s no doubt that the mid part of this year and towards the end [of the season], I was really feeling the results of missing it.
“It’s one of those things AFL players have to go through it and have injuries along the way, but for me individually, I was going into my fourth AFL season and the pre-season was crucial for my development.”
Still, Trengove, who injured his navicular bone, said it was “something you don’t want to mess around with”.
“At different times throughout the year, my training loads were right down, because there was a bit of soreness now,” he said.
“It’s got to the stage now where the season is over and I can just let it recover and then go again. Hopefully it gets better with a bit of rest and time off.”
Trengove said dealing with adversity had helped him improve as a player.
“I’ve grown stronger mentally because of it and the aim this year is to get back fully fit and have a full pre-season, because if I can do that, I can start making inroads for myself and the team,” he said.
“Missing that large period, it certainly did hurt me, but at the same time, different players face different challenges along the way and that was just one of them.
