MEG’S LOSS IS OTHERS’ CHANCE
DEFENDER KEEN TO SEE HER MATES SHINE
IT is no coincidence that selflessness is a character trait some of football’s most successful players share.
While many talented footballers possess unquestioned drive and determination to become better as individuals, not all do so in a way that ultimately makes their team better as a result.
Geelong defender Meg McDonald is just one example of a player who fits into the latter category.
But following an innocuous incident at training last Thursday that left her with a broken finger, the Cats will now be forced to play without her for the opening month of the AFLW season.
It means making the team better becomes a far greater challenge. After all, McDonald claimed Geelong’s inaugural best-and-fairest last year on her way to earning All-Australian honours and was recently made a member of the team’s leadership group.
But challenges are what the 28-year-old loves almost more than being with her teammates and seeing them improve.
So while the disappointment of injuring herself so close to the start of the season is understandably raw, the opportunity it presents is what is keeping her motivated.
“I am super disappointed and I’m still processing how disappointed I am,” McDonald said.
“I really felt like I prioritised my foot rehab after last year and we didn’t rush that.
“We were really thorough because the AFLW season was the priority.
“On a personal level, I was ready and raring to go and hopefully able to build on last year, but I am trying to reconcile in my own head how small an incident it is.
“There have been plenty of injuries across the competition that have been far more costly than this one.
“But I see my role as trying to lead the backline. There is no change in my off-field role in that sense, it is just that I can’t be out on the ground.
“So I want to drive our standards and help the girls with how we are going to play — that is my focus for now — and then making sure I have my body ready to go.
“I won’t be able to have any contact on my right hand until the pins are out but there is no limit to how much I can run, so I am hoping to be pretty fit by the time I am back out there.”
The foot rehab McDonald speaks of came after she suffered a stress fracture during the 2019 season, requiring surgery and to sit out the VFLW season — her first break from footy for more than four years.
Rather than feeling sorry for herself, though, the former
Western Bulldog knuckled down, hit the gym and looked to help out her younger teammates as they continued to develop away from the spotlight of the AFLW competition.
It was here that she shone, and as a result, in combination with her outstanding form, was added to the Geelong leadership group.
“It didn’t feel like too much of a gap for me and the beauty of having our own VFLW team is that is a huge development space for us,” she said.
“A lot of the younger players on the list who need to play as much senior footy as they can were able to do that through that time.
“I was in rehab but I was still here two or three times a week and I tried to help out on the bench on match day and had the headset on, which was how I tried to maintain my connection to the group.
“That probably fed into leadership opportunities and I feel like I spent almost more hours here over the winter, but you can build really good relationships within the team during that time.”
Like Jeremy McGovern at AFL powerhouse West Coast, McDonald’s sharp rise to prominence means rival teams will undoubtedly look to curtail her influence on the contest when she returns.
But while the humble defender accepts she can no longer fly under the radar and is embracing the challenge of teams planning for her, she says she owes much of her own good form from last year to her fellow defenders.
“That will be new if they do that but a lot of how I played last year was because of how our defence played as a team,” she said.
“We try to build that unity and have everyone knowing their role, but also to have people be able to play in different parts of the ground.
“So I think we will just go back to that and as the coaches continue to tell me my job is to look after my direct opponent and then build layers on top of that.
“So I will continue to get my job done first and hold the deepest position and go from there.” As for her breakout season and the accolades that came with it, McDonald, ever the selfless teammate, says she would swap all of the personal success in an instant if it meant she and her backline teammates saw less of the ball in 2020.
“I haven’t really thought about it as one complete singular thing, but I have absolutely been thinking back to this time last year,” she said.
“And while I was confident with how I was tracking in preseason, you don’t really know how that is going to translate in a new competition and when you’re in a new team.
“On a personal level, I was happy with my season and how I went, but I always joke that you don’t want to see too much of the ball at full-back.
“So, personally, I felt my footy was good, but hopefully we can get the ball down the other end and get the full-forward winning the best-andfairest.”