Do-or-die Dahlhaus fit for finals
IT could have been so different for Luke Dahlhaus.
During the first quarter of the Western Bulldogs’ thrilling Round 12 win over Port Adelaide, ruckman Tom Campbell fell over the star midfielder’s legs.
Some club officials, and Dahlhaus himself, feared the three letters that every sportsperson dreads — ACL.
Having seen skipper Bob Murphy go down with exactly that in Round 3, Dahlhaus knew what it meant, but a bit of luck with where his teammate Campbell’s 106odd kilos landed may have saved his season.
He was part of the Bulldogs’ injury carnage but missed just six weeks with a medial ligament injury, and has been thanking his lucky stars — and the club’s medical team — ever since.
“I actually played another five minutes after doing it and I remember thinking “jeez, this feels wobbly”,” Dahlhaus said.
“I said to (club physio) Chris Bell, ‘come and have a look at this’. He moved it and I went ‘oh’. Immediately he’s gone ‘that’s a medial — six weeks’. And he was exactly right . . .
“I’m just thanking the Lord that it wasn’t an ACL and that big Tommy Campbell didn’t land on the other side. ”
Picked up by the Bulldogs as a rookie at the end of 2010, the then-dreadlocked kid from Geelong admits he had doubts about his immediate prospects.
“There was definitely some tough times,” he said.
“Everyone goes through that building stage, and unfortunately when I came in it was after the prelim and I was thinking ‘I’ve been rookied by a pretty good team’.
“We ended up having a pretty bad year and that was the year Rocket went out.
“It sounds bad, but it was sort of good for me in terms of being a rookie — I got that opportunity to play and there was plenty of injuries.”
The sudden-death nature of finals suited him, he said. After three electric finals, and this Saturday — the biggest day of all — it will be no different. “You go out and it’s do-or-die,” Dahlhaus said of finals football.
“You either win or lose and you can’t leave anything out there. That’s my mindset going into the (finals) games. It’s pretty simple, but go out, give it your all, chase, tackle, run hard and do whatever you can to win. ”