Painful climb back
Suns star reveals his torment after injury
@ThomasBoswell1 GOLD Coast Suns tall Sam Day was gathering the ball from the turf nearly four months ago when the routine action shattered his season.
“I was bending over to get the footy like I had done 10,000 times before in my career,” the 197cm Day said of the incident that led to the most painful moments of his life and ended his AFL season before it had even begun.
“I got a little shove in the back and hyperextended my knee.
“With your knee hyperextending out at full flexion the force has to go somewhere.
“People say I should have done my knee first or say I should have torn my hammy off my bone but I guess that’s a good thing that I have strong joints and ligaments in that sense.
“It actually punched out the back of my hip and taken a bit of bone with it as well.”
Day, 24, has opened up about the hip injury, the dark days that followed, his rehabilitation and the team of people that have given him confidence that he will return better than ever in 2018. DAY, on the back of a 2016 season when he played some of his best footy, had completed a flawless pre-season going into the team’s first JLT Community Series game against Brisbane on February 19.
But it all unravelled when Day dislocated his hip while trying to gather a loose ball in the first quarter at the Broadbeach Cats’ home ground, Merrimac Oval.
Suns football manager Marcus Ashcroft described the injury as something more common in car crash victims.
Day said: “It was like nothing I have ever felt.
“Ridiculously two years ago when I dislocated my elbow, our physio Lindsay (Bull) said there is probably only one joint harder to do than your elbow and that is your hip.
“I managed to get both. have let him know about it.
“I was demanding the ‘green whistle’ pretty strongly so it took it out of me a little bit but I was in excruciating pain while it was out of its socket.
“I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone – it was horrible.
“Once I got into the change-room I think the doctor said I passed out a little bit.
“Chief medical officer Barry Rigby – we have had him here forever and I’d probably trust the man with my life – pulled my leg down and around and back into place.
“Once that was in it was just a dull ache pretty much.” I DAY had surgery the next day with surgeons using two screws to reattach a large piece of bone ripped off during the incident.
“The floating bone was hanging on a little bit to the pelvis,” Day said.
“They could have taken it out and then the recovery would have been a lot shorter 2018 COMMONWEALTH GAMES HOST CITY SAM DAY ON THE EARLY DAYS OF HIS RECOVERY but the bone was quite significant in size.
“That’s what has taken a lot of the time is that healing of the bone back to itself.”
Day revealed his inner angst that a simple act on the field had ruined his season.
“The first day after the surgery was pretty hard to take,” Day said. “I wanted to be alone for a little bit. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone.
“I was angry. I had no reason to be angry but I was really frustrated.
“I trained all through summer and my pre-season was pretty good.
“Then to do it in the first quarter of the first JLT game was not the best outcome.”
What followed was eight long weeks for Day who couldn’t put any weight on his leg during that time.
“I was very dependent on people so it was quite a stressful period,” Day said.
Among those people was partner Ali Thomas, who has only just moved to Queensland after completing her physiotherapy degree, and parents Chris and Raeleen who flew up from South Australia to help him.
It was those closest to him who helped Day shift his focus towards healing.
“They just put things into a bigger picture and gave me perspective,” he said.
The fact Day re-signed last year until the end of 2019 also took some pressure off despite his eagerness to still help his side, which has struggled at times this year.
“I’d rather be out there playing for what I signed for and it’s hard to watch the boys play at the moment with how we are going,” Day said. DAY is in the early stages of his rehabilitation program but the rarity of the injury means the Gold Coast club has little protocols to follow.
The club even has people in the US looking for examples of athletes who have suffered similar injuries.
In Australia, they have reached out to retired Perth Wildcats basketball player Shawn Redhage.
The then Wildcats captain dislocated his hip in 2010 at the age of 29 but returned the next year and went on win three NBL championships.
Redhage’s experience gives Day confidence he, too, can come back better than ever when he makes a planned return to full training after Christmas.
“I’d like to speak to (Redhage),” Day said.
“A lot of people from the public have actually reached out as well, saying they had done it and that they are not having not too many issues a few years down the track.
“When I start getting back into activities like jumping and running and stuff I’d like to see how they approached that type of stuff.”
Day expects the mental scars to take nearly as long to heal as the physical.
“I don’t like it (when) I see guys go down for a ball and have a little trip or something like that so I think the mental side of it will be as big as the physical side,” Day said.
“I know it was like that with my elbow. Speaking to our physio and rehab guys they don’t have any thoughts that I can’t come back better than I was when I did the injury.
“That’s something to look forward to and something to work towards.” LONG stints in rehabilitation can be lonely and gruelling for any player.
Day has already put plans in place to ensure he keeps a positive state of mind by working ................................... 24 ................. Pick No.3 at 2010 national draft ........................ 197cm ....................... 102kg . Forward/defender .............................. 98 ................................ 65 ............ 19 goals in 2014 on new projects both in and out of football.
He has taken up extra subjects in his Bachelor of Commerce at Griffith University and is organising the development of two houses on property he bought with his father in South Australia.
“The house is a little fatherson activity but on an extreme level,” he said.
“It’s been good and just another thing to keep in touch with the family down home.”
He also is doing a coaching course with the Suns and hopes to do work experience in radio and TV.
Next on his agenda is a month off to travel through the US with his partner Ali from the middle of this month.
“I’m getting a lot of stuff to keep me active off field and to keep my mind going,” he said.
“I’m also trying to be as involved as I can to be with the boys around the club and making sure everything is going all right away from football side of things.”