Sidelined by wrist twist

REIGNING Jack Sing medallist Sean O’Neill concedes he is unlikely to return to cricket until the new year as he continues to recover from a wrist reconstruction.

O’Neill has handed over the captaincy to all-rounder Hayden McMahon, with East Belmont entering its premiership defence without the inspirational leader for the first half of the season.

“I’ve only just started doing a little bit of rehab and I’m at least three or four weeks away from really getting into it,” O’Neill said. “I’ve got to let it all settle down.”

O’Neill is halfway through rehabilitation for the wrist injury he sustained while playing for Birregurra in the Colac & District Football League.

He was nudged off the ball in the senior clash against Lorne on Easter Saturday, rolling his wrist when he hit the ground and snapping a ligament.

“I handballed the footy and got pushed off at the same time,” O’Neill said.

“There was nothing in it at all — it probably happened another 20 times that quarter — but I rolled over my wrist.

“Initially, I just thought I’d jarred it. I went and got an X-ray and it showed a small fracture in the lunate bone, which is next to the scaphoid.

“The diagnosis for that is 3-4 weeks in a soft cast and it heals itself.”

But long after the recovery time had elapsed, O’Neill continued to have issues with the mobility of his wrist.

After a CT scan showed no obvious signs of trauma, he had an MRI.

With the images in hand, O’Neill visited Geelong Football Club doctor Drew Slimmon at the Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre.

“He had a look at my wrist and he said, ‘Look, I think you might need surgery but I’ll send you to a specialist to make sure’,” O’Neill said.

“I went up to see Jason Harvey, who works at Olympic Park in Melbourne, and I was with him for two minutes and he said, ‘It’s stuffed, you need a reconstruction’.

“The ligament which joins the scaphoid and lunate bones snapped, so I needed a full reconstruction. It’s referred to as the ACL of the wrist, so it’s pretty full on.

“I didn’t fathom how full on it was until I was leaving the surgeon’s offices and I realised I needed surgery and the recovery time was six months.”

On a waiting list for almost two months, O’Neill went under the knife mid-July.

A talented sportsman, O’Neill has been unable to play pennant golf and was forced to act as the runner for Birregurra’s finals series.

The wrist remains in a cast and he has regular rehab sessions with hand and wrist therapist Sophie Taylor at Olympic Park.

Blasting 1007 runs at 77.46 last season, the powerful strokemaker hopes to resume training in December in a bid to return early in 2020, but admits there’s no guarantee he will play this summer.

“It might be eight months, it might be 4½, you don’t know until you do rehab properly,” O’Neill said.

“I couldn’t hold a bat if I tried.

“It affects the nerves in your wrist because the surgery is so intrusive, so I’m just getting the feeling back in my thumb.”