he had issues with it at gws, and by the way he spoke when leaving, he felt they weren’t managing it well.
we managed it well last season and he played everygame and played the way he did.
this year he seems to be mismanaged with his pre season injury restricting him and his ability to train, then getting into the season playing underdone would suggest he’s aggravated it. granted that’s an uneducated guess based on just watching events unfold.
May not have been mismanaged… maybe we just pushed him to play a full season to his limits and that’s shortened the number of good games that he has left.
The S’s have been great for us… but I do question, if we’re nowhere near a premiership window, did we make a mistake trading Smith and Shiel in for 1st rounders, if their best games are going to be in the next 2 to 3 years?
Not good news, but would rather this than have us ‘manage’ him. We all know how well that goes.
I’m concerned that his knees are totally shot though. Pre-existing problems, constant soreness in both knees, and now stop-gap surgery does not bode well for the long term.
maybe, just seems odd they could manage it well enough last year for him to play mostly midfield which he wanted, seemingly without pain.
but this year it’s flared up again to the point that he now getting new pain.
maybe you’re right, maybe the knee is being asked to do more than he currently can due to interupted pre season work to which he may need in order to get it right.
who knows, it is a concern though either way. JOM had a similar issue in the sense it was supposedly career ending too, but apart from the back end of his first season there, he seems to be ontop of it, so surely there’s a way to get him back to full flight.
Smith for 11 and Shiel for 2 x 1st rounders are the two with small question marks over them. Sincerely hope I’m being overly negative with that though, and that they both play 150 game for us… and one of them is a GF
Don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that was coming unfortunately. The club can spin it whatever way they want but he will miss 6-8 weeks as a bare minimum IMO