Taylor increases load on bad foot
GEELONG defender Harry Taylor has reiterated coach Chris Scott’s words that he is nearing a return.
Taylor, who has been out since injuring his plantar fascia against Melbourne in Round 1, trained yesterday and continues to increase his training workload with a view to playing next week.
Whether that is in the VFL or AFL remains to be seen, but the 31-year-old believes he has turned a corner with his rehab and is confident he can make an impact.
“I trained (Friday) pretty solidly and did another session where I increased the load and, with plantar fascia injuries, it’s basically a matter of increasing the load to a point where it gets too sore to do too much more,” Taylor told K rock Football.
“You’ve got to tread a fine line, but so far it’s been pretty smooth . . . hopefully by the end of (next) week I’ll be able to play some footy.
“There is a chance I might play VFL at some point but we’ll wait and see. We’re fortunate enough these days where we do a lot of match simulation at training and it gets very heated and it is pretty high intensity.
“If that is enough for me to come straight in then that will be it, otherwise the coaches might think it’s best for me to spend some time in the VFL.”
Taylor, who returned to full-time pre-season training in January, said he backed the idea of senior players doing shorter pre-seasons but rebutted the suggestion his shorter preparation time contributed to his injury.
“It (plantar fasciitis) does tend to just tick along slowly and I probably had some signs of that over the pre-season,” he said.
“Not to the point where it stopped me or prohibited me in anyway, and then unfortunately in the (Melbourne) game it just tore. It was actually feeling really good for a month before Round 1 and it was just unfortunate that it was one of those situations.
“It was the wrong angle or the wrong speed, whatever it might have been, and it got a little tear in it.”