by Miriam Sved
I did not reply to Tony’s text, but I arrive at the grounds even earlier than the pre-game preparations require. The truth is that I like to be the first one in the team’s rooms, to savour this time of calmness and clarity. Particularly today, which, as well as being a heavily anticipated game for obvious reasons, has specific importance for me after yesterday’s discussion with Gerard. I have decided that I will tell all to the coaches and other managerial staff – if we win. Otherwise, I believe I will quit. Less fraught career opportunities are open to me.
Having been at the club for eight years, during which time the team has achieved some success (although no premierships), I have worked in a grand final before, as well as numerous preliminary and qualifying finals. I know from this experience that many of the players, like me, will feel compelled to arrive at the grounds unnecessarily early. It is not surprising, therefore, that when I get to the team’s rooms I find two players already there: Leon Case, who is a forward, and one of the defenders, Dean McAvoy.
‘Hello, Leon, Dean.’
They are both sitting on the floor at the far end of the room, their backs against the wall, and both are listening to portable MP3 players. ‘In the zone’. They only nod at me. I don’t take offence. I know that many club physicians like to be ‘part of the team’, but that is not my motivation. This is simply a job to me (at least for the time being). I obtained the job, ironically enough, through Gerard, who at the time had a colleague in the physiotherapy staff.
I leave Leon and Dean to their zone and go into the consultation room to begin setting up for the game. The room is arranged with an examination table and a stock of basic equipment such as bandages and taping. I always bring my own suture kit, the full complement of syringes and all the analgesics and anti-inflammatories I am likely to need. Many of the players are operating with pre-existing injuries, some of which I am particularly concerned about. Robert Schulz’s fractured knuckle, for instance: it will probably require anaesthetic over the course of the game. Leigh Mason has a shoulder injury that he exacerbated in last week’s preliminary final.
Many people assume that the older players are most vulnerable to injury at this stage of the season, but in my experience the older – even the oldest – of the men generally fare better than the young, who might be fit but are not physically inured to the trials of a complete season of football. I do not agree with the way Tony O’Brien works some of these boys in training. Even this last week, with supposedly ‘light’ training sessions drawing thousands of onlookers: even in those sessions a number of the men vomited from exertion.
It is lucky I arrived so early; with more than two hours until the game is due to begin I already hear the players arriving. They are warming up and chatting in the locker room adjoining my consultation space. Some of them will have arrived early specifically to speak to me.
I go out to the room and greet the players, asking Kevin Walker how his right knee is feeling and Sean Wellard about his shin splints. I examine Simon Rooney’s fractured ring finger, which is more swollen than I would like. ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff, doc,’ Tony O’Brien said to me in the last training session, when I raised my concerns with him. A fractured finger, contrary to appearances, is not ‘small stuff’. I do some gentle manipulation of the digit to gauge Simon’s discomfort. These players will be in a state of heightened adrenalin which could mask serious injury. It could lead to pain or even disability throughout their lives. I do not say this to Simon, who is being careful not to wince as I put radial stress on the finger.
Cameron Buta approaches me and says, ‘Something to ask you about, doc,’ in a lowered voice. I take him into the consultation room where, as expected, he requires an oral antidiuretic. I offer him an antiemetic injection if the nausea continues unabated, but he waves me away. Many of the players are embarrassed about this sort of thing, as though the responses of the digestive system to heightened stress are a sign of weakness. They even come to me shame-faced for complaints as innocuous as sleep disturbance and mental anxiety (I assure Mick Reece that stress in the lead-up to a big game is quite normal, and that short-term sleep disturbance will have no quantifiable effect on his performance).
It is now forty minutes until the game begins. The hum of noise above us is becoming more obtrusive; when I return to the locker room I can hear the mechanical twang of the tannoy system blaring out mindless pre-game entertainment.
My colleague Dr Louis Fallon arrives. He high-fives players as he walks through the rooms, saying, ‘Pretty psyched, Deano?’ and ‘How ya doin’, Mickey?’ Unlike me, Louis is a long-time follower of AFL football and a supporter of this club. We have different approaches to the job. I do believe, however, that he is a competent physician. My main complaint about Louis is that, having been employed by the club for two years longer than me, and also I think because of his status as a ‘fan’, he tends to adopt a superior and even managerial tone with me. This is not in keeping with the terms of our employment.
‘G’day, Phil,’ he says as he enters the consultation room where I have been overseeing some physiotherapy on Leigh’s shoulder. ‘Hope you’ve got everything set up and ready to roll. Today’s going to be massive.’
I nod at him over the hump of Leigh’s back. ‘I think everything is under control.’
*
When we emerge from the twilight of the training rooms into the outdoor stadium, the noise and sheer enormity of the crowd is an assault to the senses. It seems the whole of Melbourne and a good portion of the other states have arrived at the stadium, where the pre-game performance of some popular band is wrapping up. Banners are elevated for the players to run through. Despite believing myself to have been prepared by past experience, my pulse is somewhat rapid. It is just medicine, I think. The human body is the same on a football field or in a consultation room.
Louis and I set up the kit bags in a quiet corner of the dugout. He speaks to the technical consultant about where to hook up the monitor.
‘You’re on the stream,’ Louis says. Meaning I will be following the progress of play on the monitor while he watches the game live, paying more attention to injuries off the ball. As usual his approach is heavy-handed, but I do not object: I prefer to do my job via the monitor, where there is a narrow focus on contests for the ball. This is where most injuries are sustained.
I am no expert on AFL football. My choice to specialise in sports medicine was conditioned by practical considerations rather than sporting enthusiasm. But my years of employment at this club have given me a certain appreciation for the game, as well as my own ways of interpreting what at first appeared to me as barely ordered chaos. The way the team plays together – its ‘character’ – seems most suited to animalistic symbolism. I have seen this team play like a quiet, cowed pup; occasionally like something sleek and fierce. Today the animal set loose by the opening siren is rangy and desperate.
I bind my attention to the monitor. In big games, injuries often occur in the first frantic clashing of bodies; it is important to watch the tackling closely, to understand the mechanism of any injury that occurs. Players hurl themselves towards the ball. Almost immediately there is a hard collision involving one of our midfielders, Jason Hayes, but he spins out of it and keeps running, seemingly unaffected. Sean Wellard gets the ball and runs with it. I watch closely for signs of stress: the shin soreness does not seem to be troubling him. His run does not last long; he is surrounded by opposition players and forced to kick into open space. I cannot help but note that the other team’s animal appears faster, smoother than ours. I know from the complaints of Louis and other colleagues that the opposition have had a less bruising season (‘The draw’s a bloody joke,’ Louis said to me last week) and are expected to win this game easily. In which case, I will be spared my disclosure.
Some minutes into the first quarter the team’s ruckman, Kevin Walker, comes off after a particularly violent collision of knees. Kevi
n’s knees are closely watched objects of anxiety around the club, especially since Luke Camperos is no longer available to step into the ruck. Kevin is old in football terms: twenty-nine. His knees cause him chronic pain with flare-ups of intolerability. The level of pain he experiences during games is generally manageable because of the adrenalin. Afterwards he will be almost incapacitated.
Tony O’Brien lurks close by as I examine the right knee, the primary site of pain. I look around for one of the physiotherapists to request more strapping, but Tony intercepts my line of vision. ‘Give him a jab, doc,’ he says. Meaning an injection of local anaesthetic. I don’t bother replying; I have explained to Tony many times why anaesthetic pain relief is neither safe nor appropriate for the larger joints. Luckily his attention is caught by something happening on the ground and he moves away to speak to the team manager.
I signal to the physiotherapist and refocus on Kevin. ‘How bad is the pain, from one to ten?’
‘Two,’ he says, grey and thin-lipped. I know I will not be able to get anything else out of him. He is a friendly, gentle man in all my dealings with him outside of games; during games he is steely and almost silent.
Tony is lurking again. Of course Kevin nods when I ask if he is ready to go back on. I check the scoreboard: the team has dropped two goals in the short space of time since he came off. ‘We’re getting killed in the clearances,’ Tony says loudly.
The physiotherapist applies another layer of strapping and Kevin runs back out. It might not be generally noticeable but I can see he is favouring his right leg.
*
Activity in the dugout is, as usual, frenetic. Coaching staff shout from one end to the other (‘Henley back on, send him back on now!’, ‘Get a runner out there, we need Gallo to fall back and cover the loose man’). The phone connection from the coaching box rings constantly and the interchange bench is chaotic. I return my attention to the monitor, trying to calm my pulse and focus my mind. I am only watching on-ball contests, but I cannot help noticing that half the ground is almost completely empty, abandoned to the gulls. Our forward half.
‘Man up, get into him!’ Tony shouts at the field. A hard clash of bodies: mild head contact. No concussion indicators. One of our players is pinned to the ground holding the ball. Leon Case – his arm is wrenched behind him, a brutal manoeuvre. The umpire blows his whistle. Leon clambers out of the scrum and dusts himself off. Unhurt, or anaesthetised by adrenalin.
The ball comes down and is kicked into our forward half, players streaming after it. Mick Reece runs out in front of the pack and gets into the forward fifty. He takes a high mark and does not stop running until he is metres from the goal, where he kicks high and long. I give a reflex shout of approval; men all over the benches are standing and shouting. Tony O’Brien punches himself in the thigh and says, ‘Another one quick out of the middle, quick out of the middle.’
I refocus on the monitor. In the centre square the bounce veers off course. The ball is brought back and thrown high in the air so the ruckmen have to focus their all on the vertical leap, ignoring the clashing of knees – I try to read Kevin Walker’s face but it is wiped clean. The ball is on the ground: a writhing mass of players, diving and fighting for it until an opposition player breaks free. One of our midfielders, Russell King, reaches out to try to stop him but the player’s momentum is too strong, Russell’s arm hyperextends behind his body. He hunches over instantly in a protective pose and hobbles a few steps bent almost double, cradling his arm. The shoulder is dislocated.
Louis has seen the injury; he shouts to me, ‘Get him off. I’ll reduce the shoulder.’
I jog out to the ground. It is always a somewhat strange experience crossing the barrier from benches to playing field. The noise of the crowd seems instantly amplified, the sky somehow larger. I am peripherally aware of the run of play, which is moving away into our back half. I reach the injured player and escort him to the benches, where Tony is waiting. ‘You’ll be right, mate,’ he says. ‘Doc’ll pop that back in for you no fuss.’
I believe this shoulder dislocation is Russell’s first. If it were Simon Rooney’s left shoulder, which he can pop in and out at will, it might be ‘no fuss’. Russell is sucking air through his teeth. I consider asking Louis if I might perform the reduction. But the quarter is approaching its last minute, tackling is fierce and someone needs to monitor injuries. Louis is a capable physician, and he will pass Russell on to the physiotherapists; there will be a thorough regime of testing to make sure the shoulder is stable, whatever Tony O’Brien says.
*
When the quarter-time siren goes I check the scoreboard. Surprisingly, the opposition are ahead by only three points: 31–28. They have ‘dominated the play’ but missed a few kicks for goal.
Russell has had his shoulder reduced and is undergoing strength and mobility testing with the trainers. Kevin Walker comes to the benches for some ice on his knee. The rest of the players are out on the ground, in a huddle with Cob and his whiteboard.
The breaks during a tense game always seem extremely brief. I am reminded of naps caught at 2 am or 5 am during a twenty-four-hour ER shift: one never felt fully engaged with sleep, only skirting around the edges of that tempting pool before some fresh emergency shattered the peace. I take a bottle from a nearby bucket of electrolyte drinks; important to stay hydrated.
Almost as soon as the second quarter is underway there is a clash of bodies with head-high contact. The impact is not serious but our captain, Peter Henley, comes off with a laceration above his lip, moderate bleeding. I am able to bind the contusion with tissue adhesive to save time on suturing. Peter’s legs twitch convulsively while I work on his face; twice he jumps up from the bench in response to something happening on the field, causing me to smear glue across his cheek. He wants to go straight back on but is forced to wait a few minutes on the interchange bench.
I return to the monitor. Once again our entire half of the ground is empty except for one lone man in the forward fifty, and the gulls. The ball is kicked high into our defensive fifty, where five players run towards its descent. They meet in a mid-air collision, the ball landing squarely in the hands of the only one to stay upright – an opposition player. Two of ours, Ben Morton and Mick Reece, land roughly. Ben is on his feet quickly but Mick stays on his back on the ground. I signal to Louis that I will go out to the boy.
Gulls wheel off towards the stands as I approach the player. He has not tried to rise, but when I am near enough to see his face – panicked, gulping for air but vital – I know he is winded. I crouch over him and help him to sit up. ‘Just try to breathe normally.’ It is a very unpleasant experience for players but not physically dangerous. After twenty seconds or so he is capable of standing up and being helped off the ground. The ball, surrounded by stampeding players, comes back in our direction just as Mick and I vacate the field.
‘I’m alright now,’ he says. I insist on sitting him down anyway and monitoring his breathing.
Of course Tony is instantly hovering. He addresses the boy, who is pale and intermittently hyperventilating. ‘Bit of a winding, nothing to worry about,’ he says. ‘You must be itching to get back out there.’
I stand and turn towards the fitness coach. When I am eye to eye with him all I can say is, ‘Please let me do my work.’ It is deeply inadequate.
After the game I will quit, I think. Win or lose, I do not care.
‘The kid’s fine,’ Tony says, ‘aren’t ya, Mickey?’
The player runs back out with the next interchange. I return to the monitor.
Most of the play is still in the opposition’s half. We are defending relentlessly: tackles all over the ground, more impacts than I can follow. I don’t know how our players will sustain this level of physical intensity for another two and a half quarters. Another facial laceration – Cameron Buta – this time deeper and requiring stitches. Louis takes him into the ra
ce to perform the suturing, leaving me to cover the game, dividing my attention between the ground and the monitor. Time starts to turn in on itself, the same tackles taking place again and again. Corey Miller gets a glancing blow to the temple. He is not knocked out but I insist on having him pulled off the ground for observation. He scores within normal range on the SCAT3 and begs to go back on. I return to the monitor. I think I will quit. I think about calling Gerard in the main break to tell him.
The half-time siren sounds just as an opposition player takes a mark in their forward fifty. He kicks the goal. Behind me someone swears and kicks the ground. I breathe, close my eyes for a few moments. When I open them I look up at the scoreboard: 55–41. We are behind by fourteen points.
Adrenalin can abandon the body quickly. I pack up my kit bag to follow the players down to the rooms feeling somewhat drained.
The atmosphere in the locker room is pensive: players stretching their limbs or fidgeting against the walls. They are encouraged to stay warm – bikes and massage stations are set up in opposite corners of the room.
I go around checking strappings, bruises, fractures. Most of the boys downplay their injuries, calling them ‘niggles’, but both Robert Schulz and Simon Rooney readily accept the offer of local anaesthetic for their hand injuries.
Cob is rallying the boys around a whiteboard. From what I have seen of this kind of ‘game day’ coaching, he will probably have some plan to change the on-field tactics slightly: some special vision he has gleaned from his high perch in the coaching box. He is a man who, though somewhat intimidating, is easy to admire.
Tony O’Brien stands near the head coach, his arms crossed over his barrel chest, surveying the players and issuing instructions. (‘Back on the bike, Morton. Butes, you wanna give that hammy a stretch.’) I feel a stab of something surprisingly like envy for the fitness coach. He fits so effortlessly into this world, whereas I know I will always be an outsider. However, now that the adrenalin has ebbed away I am not planning to quit immediately. I will decide how to proceed based on the outcome of the game, as I told Gerard.