St Kilda recruit Paddy Dow has revealed he’s suffered a setback in his return from bone bruising and remains three or four weeks away from full training.
Initial fears after a training incident in late January was that the former Blue had ruptured his ACL. When scans instead returned a diagnosis of bone bruising in his knee, he was likely to miss up to a month.
But now deep into February, Dow is seemingly no closer to returning than he was following the incident.
“The timeline I’ve got now is 3-4 weeks,” he told SEN’s The Run Home.
“Hopefully that tracks well but they’re open to anything different, whether it goes better or worse.
“I had an incident where I twisted my knee and got bone bruising, and the bone bruising was pretty bad. If you keep training with bone bruising it just gets worse and worse, so I just have to rest it.”
St Kilda’s Round 1 matchup comes against Geelong on March 16, meaning Dow is all but certain to miss the start of his first season at the Saints. Ross Lyon’s side then comes up against Collingwood and Essendon in the opening rounds.
Dow already wasn’t guaranteed a spot in the Saints’ best 22 after crossing from Carlton last trade period in a complicated four-club trade.
But it’s nevertheless a disappointing blow for the 24-year-old after managing 14 AFL games across the last two seasons under Michael Voss.
On fears he’d done an ACL, Dow added: “I had never had any issues with my knee so I scared myself a bit there.
“I didn’t know what to expect when you do an ACL, so I just thought the worst straight away.”
St Kilda’s other 2023 trade recruit, Liam Henry from Fremantle, was one of the club’s shining lights in their practice game win Friday evening over Essendon.
Their speed off half-back – which Nathan Buckley described as a significant weapon – was also on show. It’s a key part of the Saints’ list build.
“A lot of the teams are all trying to do the same thing, there’s a lot of trends in football. But the way the Saints play, it’s a little bit different to Carlton in a way, they’re a very strong running team, the Saints. They’ve got a lot of high-end runners, they’re really good on the outside but also in the stoppages,” Dow added.
The 184cm midfielder has speed to burn and that shapes as his key asset when he tries to break into a midfield already featuring the likes of Jack Steele, Jack Sinclair, Brad Crouch and more.
“My role will be in the midfield, using my strengths to play in this team and hopefully complement the other midfielders in here,” he said.
“Hopefully I can work hard and get in the team and provide that.”