Comeback for the ages
THE most persistent player in the AFL, Alex Johnson, will play his first game of senior football since the 2012 grand final when he lines up against Collingwood at the SCG on Saturday night.
When he runs out against the Magpies it will have been 2136 days since he last played AFL footy.
In that time there have been four different prime ministers and the Swans have played 143 games without him. The last time he played, Brownlow favourite Tom Mitchell was yet to debut and Marcus Bontempelli had not even been drafted.
The 26-year-old has had a staggering 12 knee operations, including five reconstructions over a four-year period from early 2013.
“I had my eyes firmly set on coming back to the AFL,” Johnson said. “That’s why I’ve stuck at it and had five knee reconstructions, 12 operations on the knee and been through a lot over the journey. But I have always had my sights on getting back in the AFL.
“You speak to anyone that is close to me and they know I wouldn’t give up until that happens, but there were times lying in a hospital bed, having two surgeries in a week that I was more concerned about my health rather than getting back and playing footy. You start to question whether it will actually happen so I am over the moon that it’s come.”
When John Longmire broke the news to Johnson yesterday he said it took time to process the information and he needed to actually see his name on the magnetic board for it to sink in.
“Yeah I had to dust it [Johnson’s name tag] off,” Longmire said.
“Fair to say it had an inch or so of dust. It’s been creeping across over the weeks to be honest. It has. That’s just been the reality of it. We’ve been talking about it as a match committee now for a number of weeks, so he’s a competitor.
“Alex is a competitor. We dusted it off. Everybody has gone through a lot since Alex’s last game. That’s undeniable and to get him back into the senior team this week is an absolute credit to the type of person he is.”
Johnson has played the past seven games for the Swans reserves in the NEAFL and the Swans coach says he’s in the team on merit. “He absolutely deserves a game,” Longmire said.