Currie the favourite
A HAND injury to Jarrod Witts has opened the door for Dan Currie to stake his claim for the Gold Coast Suns No.1 ruck position against Essendon this weekend.
Witts will miss the Suns second JLT Community Series game against the Bombers tomorrow after splitting the webbing in his hand in the club’s win against Brisbane last weekend.
He is expected to return for game three against the Western Bulldogs on March 9 after having surgery earlier this week.
The former Collingwood ruckman was the frontrunner for Round 1 but Currie will have the chance to get a second full pre-season game under his belt to edge ahead of Witts while established Suns ruckman Tom Nicholls continues to work his way back from injury.
“You don’t want to see anyone go down so hopefully he (Witts) is back pretty quickly,” Currie said.
“There is an opportunity there and we will all be fighting for that spot for Round 1.”
Currie is also suffering some knee tendinitis and was meant to play just a half against the Lions but with Witts going down before halftime the 28-year-old played the game out. The former North Melbourne big man is expected to be fit to play tomorrow after completing his first senior game since May last year.
Witts suffered the same in- jury last season at Collingwood and went on to miss five weeks due to a subsequent infection. Currie said that he felt for Witts after suffering a horrid run of injuries last year in his first season at the club.
He was close to locking himself in Gold Coast’s best 22 when he suffered a broken finger in May.
He had surgery to repair the damage, broke another finger that required surgery and then fractured his knuckle in the last two weeks of the season to finish the year with just four AFL games to his name.
It meant Currie was happy to carry the extra load on Sunday and play out the full game.
“Personally it was good to get through a game,” he said.
“It was a pretty rough second half to the year.
“The last three games I’ve played before that I’ve broken bones so it was good to actually get a game under my belt. Hopefully I can build on this now for a big year.
“I’ve had a pretty good preseason and now I’m just looking forward to what is hopefully a big year.”
Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade said that Currie battled manfully against Brisbane while he was impressed by the indication of what Witts could bring to the team in 2017.
“I thought what (Witts) did he did well,” Eade said.