Thomson injury toll ‘part of game’
A key recruit’s possible partial achilles tear is the sour cherry on top of a mounting injury list at Thomson.
The reigning GDFL grand finalist has been hit hard in the opening two rounds, making six changes because of injury after its round 1 win over Winchelsea before another five went down in its loss to East Geelong in round 2.
“We’re having a bit of a rough trot at the moment, but it’s part of the game,” Thomson coach Paul Lynch said.
“Inverleigh had to deal with it early last year and I think we’re having the same patch at the moment We seem to be copping it every week.”
Tigers recruit Logan Mitchell, who joined from Bellarine club Barwon Heads in the off-season, is expected to be a big loss after the midfielder went down with an achilles/ calf injury in the first five minutes against the Eagles.
“It felt like he’d been kicked, which is never a good sign,” Lynch said.
“At this stage they think it might be a partial tear of the achilles. He’ll probably miss a real big chunk of the year.
“We’ll wait and see what the scan shows Friday but I don’t think that’s looking great.”
Darcy Kelly (concussion), Mitch Sheedy (ankle) and David McLeish (knee) are among those out for multiple weeks after Saturday’s loss.
It comes after playing assistant Nick Lynch and captain Sam Jacka, as well as Mitch Hodgson, Brandon Gardiner, Charles Russell and Daniel Freeman all missed the East Geelong match through injury.
“They’ll all be three-to-four weeks, all of them,” the coach said.
Lynch said the Tigers’ injury toll put pressure on their numbers, before indicating he’d look towards some of their younger players to step up in the interim.
“We’ve got some good kids in the club now that we’ve obtained from a few GFL under-18 sides so we’ll keep promoting those kids,” he said.
“The only thing is they carry points, which makes it a little bit difficult at times – they all carry three points so we can’t play them all.”
Faced with a tough round 3 away fixture against ladderleaders Bannockburn on Saturday, Lynch still kept faith in the Tigers’ ability to win games despite their troubles.
“It’s never black-and-white when that sort of situation happens,” he said.
“You’ve just got to stay positive and stick to the plan and process.
“You don’t want to throw up the red flag, you’ve got to find a way to come up with a strategy or game plan to make up for what you’re missing or deficient in and hopefully you can still get the result.”