I don’t think there is any doubt his body let him down. In his 16(?) months in Melbourne, he had 2 x shoulder reconstructions and reinjured his shoulder last week in match sim. He had broken ribs, and persistent knee tendonitis issues.
I think a combination of this, and the fact that in his 11 games on the park, he showed very little led to this decision.
Believe me mate, this is an opinion I have grappled with in recent days too.
Sounds like a nightmare run with injury. Considering he needed everything to go right to fast track his development, the amount of time on the sidelines made it very tough to get up to speed.
Yep, spot on. While I personally do think the move from forward to defense did take too long last year, the reality is that if he could have played all season, and 5-8 games in defense then maybe the story might be different. As it panned out, he only got the 2 games in defense (arguably 2 of his better games) before the 2nd lot of shoulder surgery which meant missing the VFL finals series and preseason up until Xmas.
At his stage of development, he needed both preseasons in full, and 20 games last year. The reality is he got almost no contact-based preseasons both years, and not enough games.
Luke’s experience just shows how incredibly difficult it is to play AFL football. Luke is obviously a freak athlete with his size, speed, athleticism and we also know from S.K.'s insights that he was mentally driven to succeed. But you put him into a contact sport where the opposition aim to hurt him and there isn’t much chance to develop as an injured spectator.
It would be interesting to try this experiment over a longer period with someone like Luke playing low level AFL and building a genuinely strong AFL body before they play VFL. But the player would need to be patient and realise they won’t play even VFL (ruck) for 3 years. But a club may be able to design a footballer who can debut in VFL at 25 yrs old with the chance of a career.
Making that tough decision by either club or player has to be a very difficult thing to do - especially if the player is trying hard to do well (rather than someone who doesn’t give stuff and just cruises along).
Clubs will have seen many players come through and have a good feel for whether there is a reasonable chance. Doesn’t mean they always get it right, but hopefully in this case they did it in the best interests of Luke as well. Agree the timing with the indigenous camp is odd though.
And while you’ve had a two year journey inside the club - us on Blitz appreciate you sharing it with us.
Yeah, this has been one of the most interesting things I’ve followed in the AFL. The small details of what real life is like in this industry. Thanks heaps for sharing, I’m sure Luke would be soooooo happy you’ve been sharing his journey with a bunch of random footy nerds on the interwebs.
Certainly had injury issues but would have also seemingly been coming from too far back and not progressing as they’d hoped. Aka - not up to it.
Really probably needs to spend some solid time in lower leagues and fight his way back from there if footy still part of his future thoughts.
Best of luck to him for the future. Strange to be sent away in February, very strange.
No worries, it’s been an amazing journey.
Luke has never minded me sharing. I’ve often screenshotted bits of training reports where someone’s mentioned nice stuff about him and sent it through to him.
The club on the other hand have warned me off, particularly in the early days, so I have had to be careful of what I said.
pretend you’re someone else
This would be a weird thread for Luke to read…
No chance of him staying listed with the VFL, building form and keeping hopes alive for another crack?
The February call is the part that makes no sense to me. If his body was no going to be right for the season than ok - but by the sounds of it this isn’t the case. Therefore what harm was there is keeping him around and seeing if he showed anything during the season. Only justification could be that too many resources would be needed to develop him - ones which could be used elsewhere.
That’s your answer.
Plus I don’t think rookie B’s are in the salary cap, so might save $.
Plus VFL list could be stacked for talls. Draper, Clark, Brown, Stewart, Ambrose, Hartley. If all fit, you have trouble making a balanced side.
Wonder what Darcy and Kyle think of theirs?
Good luck to the young man. An honour to be at the club and sounds like he loved it apart from the injuries.
Now it’s over you can certainly add context to future arguments on the forum.
Bad luck for the kid, it’s a tough game and an even tough road to success. Great effort for him to have made it this far considering his background in other sports and I’m sure he will have many future successes to look forward too outside of football and cricket.
I see your point, but if the balance of the VFL team was an issue it could have been resolved by sending him to another VFL team or local club. The Saints have a ruckman playing with Frankston while the rest of their squad plays with Sandy.
But can we still add players to the rookie B?
…with a disability which we can all laugh about because it’s not us.