In the wake of Jack Riewoldt’s training mishap, veteran sportswriter Rohan Connolly has listed his top five most exotic injuries to footballers.
5. Nigel Smart | Adelaide
The former Crow makes the list with an injury that has been well-known for over 20 years, which was the night he walked over hot coals during a pre-season team trip in 1992.
Adelaide coach Graham Cornes brought a motivational guru along the trip to gauge team unity following the club’s inaugural season in the AFL, and that involved pouring simmering hot coals along the ground and encouraged the entire team to walk through them.
Smart was the only player brave enough to accomplish the feat, which led to painful blisters and a burnt sole.
However, he recovered quickly enough to play just a week later.
4. Garry Hocking | Geelong
‘Buddha’ and fellow Cats teammate Paul Couch worked as garbage collectors as a second job while playing semi-professionally at Kardinia Park, and it was during a morning ‘garbo run’ which is where the famous incident occurred.
During the run both Hocking and Couch stopped to play kick-to-kick with a few locals until he tripped on a curb which resulted in a foot injury that kept him out of the senior squad for six weeks. The Cats were less than happy.
3. Steve Johnson | Greater Western Sydney
‘Stevie J’ has been known for a few off-field injury issues throughout his career, but it was the incident that happened in November last year that made his list.
The star forward had a delayed pre-season after rupturing a tendon in his thumb while reaching in a bag to get his mobile phone. The injury was so serious, it required surgery.
2. Brad Ottens | Richmond/Geelong
The former Tiger and Cat had two interesting nominations, with the first one being in late 2009 playing for Geelong where he suffered tendon damage to his hand and needed stiches to his arm and leg after making contact with a propeller of a water-boat while water-skiing.
The second incident (and arguably the biggest of the two) was when he impailed himself on a garden stake after falling from a chair attempting to put up a hammock in his backyard.
The stake pierced his groin.
“It was a blunt end and I landed on it in a way that it just went straight in," he said after the incident.
“I asked the ambos if they (genitals) were still there ... because it wasn’t bleeding that much they said it was probably all right."
1. Bob Pratt | South Melbourne
Back in 1935, the legendary South Melbourne forward stepped off a tram in High Street, Prahran the Thursday night before the 1935 grand final and was hit by a truck carrying five tonnes of bricks.
Pratt injured his ankle, lacerated his legs and was ruled out of the match which South Melbourne eventually lost kicking their lowest score of the season.
The Bloods had lost only two games for the entire season and Pratt had kicked 103 goals.