bayman wrote:it doesn't help playing on rock hard surfaces in february
No AFL club plays on any ground in a match without months of watering. If the local association doesn't meet the ground standards imposed on them, the game is cancelled and moved back to Melbourne/ Subi/ AAMI wherever. The players association and clubs ride that incredibly hard. There was a rash of games in country victoria cancelled 2-3 years ago, and also at Morningside in Qld.
AFL hasn't played a game in Albany in the last 10 years, so not sure what these other knees are from there, aside from Dick (a tackle) and Brown over the weekend??
As for Mitch Brown, he actually played for a quarter and a half after he did his knee, in the same way Lenny Hayes played on last year. It didn't swell up at all and it wasn't till training the next morning when he said the joint still felt weird that they did the checks and the bad news for him came up.
The one thing that 16 years of injury surveys in the AFL has told us though that if you are going to do a knee non-contact, it will most likely happen in the first six weeks of the year (hardly ever the last six weeks) and will more likely happen in WA, SA and Qld, compared to NSW, Vic and Tas. However, Nick Malceski completely blows that history of evidence by doing his knee non-contact in Tassie.
Roger Woodcock -- 602 goals from a forward flank makes you a legend.