I do wonder how long they can persist with this week to week proposition before we finally put him out to pasture.
How long is it sustainable to have a bloke playing at half capacity every 3 weeks?
Maybe they want to eek out 1 or 2 more games out of his foot before pulling the pin.
Win this week and he probably doesn’t play until finals. I think we’ll go all out this week to get the win which should be enough to make finals.
His fitness and touch would be decreasing the longer this goes on.
I don’t think you can get away with it playing midfield against finals opposition.
He had some big moments against the crows but he was clearly off, are we comfortably carrying that Heppell in a final?
Would happily play a 100% fit Myers and put Hep on Ice for next year, we need that big body on the inside.
I don’t think he had a problem with it until now.
Touch yes he’ll definitely lose that but fitness I still see him running 15 km. He’s an endurance beast.
Do they just manage him for year or get it fixed as soon as we have finals squared away?
From what I read about the other foot he had done they just pinned it, given no break could assume that operation to pin the annoying plate area might be what 4wk recovery ?
Surely can’t be too good for us or him playing him every 2nd week only
You’d think they would have done it weeks ago if it was only a 4wk recovery? Unless they plan to do it in the offseason and let him rest up properly instead of rushing him back for finals.
poor bloke, his foot has got the sniffles.
Dyson Heppell has braved freezing conditions at Essendon on Wednesday to complete an early-morning session away from the main group as he recovers from a cold.
The Bombers skipper was seen departing the club just after 9am, an hour before the club’s main session, having already tested the fitness of his sore foot with club officials earlier in the morning.
His availability for Saturday’s crucial clash with Port Adelaide will subsequently depend on “a bit of both” in terms of his foot and his illness, according to coach John Worsfold.
“He’s not too bad,” the Bombers coach said. "He’s actually got a little bit of a cold today, so that’s why he’s trained a little bit earlier. We thought we’d get that done and get him out of here.
"I’ll get a report on how he felt with his running and where he’s at later on today. I’m not going to anticipate anything, because I just don’t know.
“As I did last week, I’ll wait until we hear how he is. When I hear he’s no good, we obviously move on and select the team. I’ll wait until I get the final call later today.”
Dyson Heppell trained away from the main group on Wednesday. (Photo: AFL Photos)
Heppell has been managed through the last month due to his foot problem, missing Sunday evening’s narrow 10-point victory over Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium.
Essendon is confident it can continue to nurse the important midfielder through the remainder of the season despite his genetic foot issue, saying it has put off sending him for surgery as the club looks forward to its upcoming finals campaign.
“We’re trying to make it sustainable,” Worsfold said.
"We could’ve ruled him out and fixed his foot with surgery four weeks ago and his season would have been over. But it’s not one of those injuries that we can’t manage through.
“If it pulls up alright, he can still get some more footy in, so that’s the plan.”
There is good news on the injury front for Essendon, with lively forward Orazio Fantasia set to return from a fortnight on the sidelines due to a hip injury.
However, the Bombers are predicting he will need to undergo surgery to correct the issue at season’s end.
“He’s going really well,” Worsfold said.
"I’m confident he’ll be right to go this week.
"Our understanding is that it is something that will need to be corrected at the end of the season. It’s not common, but there are a lot of players who have had that surgery.
“Absolutely, we’ll manage him through it. It’s like all of these niggles, you don’t know how they’ll pull up after games, so we can’t predict that. But we’ll manage it as best as we can.”
Woosh just said it was a season ending one if they fixed it a few weeks ago so seems going to have to manage it for year and then send him in
It really is annoying the amount of injuries we’ve had to important and structurally critical players. If only we’d had a clear run at it, definitely would have another 1-2 wins up and we’d be in the top 4. Hopefully 2020 we have a 2000-like run with injury…
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Except, minus the equivalent Rioli injury that cost him a premiership.
The less injuries the better is really the key. Our Management so far has been better than many of the other clubs like Richmond, Collingwood, Melbourne, Hawthorn, Sydney and several others who have about the same number of players not playing due to injuries as we have.
Are there more injuries this year? Or are we simply receiving more information about injuries from the media leading into finals?
A lot of sickness in our playing group this year. We should give them all some sort of immune booster…
We are missing our captain.
badly
Probably for his own good he wasn’t out there today on a busted foot. Would have been shown up badly.
Yes. Terry Daniher can’t be replaced.
Put him in for surgery now and get him right for next year. He’s not going to be the difference this year and even if we by some miracle make finals we won’t be making it past the first round
