SCOPE TO IMPROVE
Menegola surgery aims to end niggles
GEELONG midfielder Sam Menegola says he expects to be back in full training next month after post-season knee surgery.
Menegola was one of six players to play all 23 games for the Cats in 2018 and finished ninth in the club best-andfairest award.
Despite not joining in ball movement and other skills drills with the majority of the Geelong squad, he has been putting in long hours away from his teammates and has completed large volumes of running and cross-training exercises with the fitness staff.
The 26-year-old revealed yesterday he had gone in for a “minor” scope on his right knee to avoid any lingering concerns, and said he was confident he would join his teammates in the new year as Geelong ramps up its preparation for practice games and the start of the 2019 season.
“There were a couple of little niggles at the end of last year that we are just letting settle down, so post-Christmas I should be right back into it, which will be good,” Menegola said.
“I had some right knee stuff that was hanging around but we think it is tracking the right way and I should be back soon, slogging it out with the boys.
“It was just a little scope, no big deal, but just enough to tidy it up … it was definitely on the minor end.
“Our focus has really been how it looks leading up to and during the Christmas period but I would have thought I would be back in full training early enough for those (JLT) matches.”
Menegola will have some work to do when he returns to the track getting to know how some of his new teammates play, with Geelong adding 12 players to its list since bowing out of finals to Melbourne in September.
But he said he had been impressed with what he had seen of the club’s recruits.
“Both of the guys we got through the trade period, Gary (Rohan) and ‘Dal’ (Luke Dahlhaus), have both brought some real energy and some different ideas, which guys from other clubs tend to do, which has been really exciting,” Menegola said.
“But we have just got such a big group of young guys, which in itself is exciting with the energy and enthusiasm they bring.
“I’m enjoying that group as a whole and even the second and third-year guys are feeling more comfortable and are starting to talk up more, so that energy has been something we have been able to pick up on.
“I wouldn’t say we needed that, but it is always nice. But we always come back hungry to get better and go better than we have, and the results probably drive us more than youthful enthusiasm.”