As Australian Rules football speeds up, the stresses on players are often more than their bodies can bear

By LISA CLAUSEN

or a moment or two there was no pain, but a few minutes after landing heavily on his right knee during the first game of the 1997 season, Australian Football League player Lee Walker knew he was in trouble. He'd already had three knee reconstructions in seven years --two operations on his left knee, one on his right--but that fall meant Walker, 25, was headed back to surgery. Still in rehabilitation, the Collingwood forward thinks only of playing again: "I'm not going to let that chance slip away."

Injured footballers have been looking for a way to get back in the game since 1912, when another Collingwood forward, W.H. "Dick" Lee, became the first Australian Rules player to successfully undergo reconstructive knee surgery. But while modern medical techniques now routinely revive what would once have been dashed careers, football in the '90s is subjecting its brightest stars to unprecedented physical stress. A new study has found that the speed of Australian Rules football has doubled in the past 30 years. And as the pace accelerates, so does the human toll: the number of injuries in AFL is growing by 6-10% every year.

Most AFL injuries are due to the volatile nature of the game, which demands that its players leap, tackle, pivot, sprint and kick. "It's chaos. You've got three or four people jumping in the air for a ball and they're bound to collide. The higher they jump, the further they fall," says Sydney-based orthopedic surgeon Merv Cross, who specializes in football-related knee injuries. It's a busy field: according to a Deakin University study presented at the Football Australasia Conference last month, Australian Rules football accounts for more injuries than any other Australian sport. Says Leigh Matthews, Victorian state coach and a veteran of 16 seasons with AFL club Hawthorn: "There are times when the human body isn't designed to do what it's being asked to do."

In the AFL, impossible physical demands are being made at an increasing rate. Knee injuries remain the impairment most likely to keep a player off the field, but groin and hamstring injuries are also on the rise. One reason: more collisions at greater speed. By timing footage of grand finals in 1961, '71, '81 and '97, University of South Australia researchers recently found that the average time a ball is continuously in play has fallen from 35 sec. to 23 sec., yet each episode contains more man-on-man contests, handballs and shots at goal. They also found that over the course of a modern game the ball travels at an average 7 m/sec.--twice the velocity of 1961. Says report author Kevin Norton: "The ball hardly touches the ground."

But players do. Modern AFL grounds, with sophisticated drainage systems that promote a dry, fast surface, are a prime reason for the accelerated pace of AFL--and, says former West Coast Eagles coach John Todd, its growing injury lists. "The grounds are too good," says Todd. "Players can run faster, which means they change direction faster. And that puts pressure directly on the knees. On a muddy, shifting surface, you rarely get serious injuries." Says John Orchard, medical officer for the Sydney Swans from 1994-97: "When you're going slower on a heavier ground, the forces involved are less."

Advances off the field, however, mean that players are now less likely to have their playing days ended even by severe injury. Magnetic resonance imaging and keyhole surgery reduce the risk and invasiveness of operations; today, a player like Walker is able to contemplate a fourth knee operation where in the past players were forced to retire after just one wrenched or torn ligament. Returning to the field after an operation to repair a damaged anterior cruciate ligament--the most common serious knee injury--can still take a year or more, but most players suffer no long-term effects. Todd damaged his left knee as an 18-year-old in 1956; after surgery, he played on but "knew I was on borrowed time." His doctor advised him to "run only in straight lines, don't jump in packs, and don't twist and turn."

Today, any player even half as restricted would be instantly cut from his team, says former Hawthorn premiership player Dermott Brereton: "If you're even slightly slowed down by injury, you'll be dropped. The modern game is all about pace." And patience: Adelaide Crows ruckman Shaun Rehn was sidelined for two years following two knee reconstructions: "I look at them as character building."

That might describe Lee Walker's new role at Collingwood. Appointed as a rehabilitation coach during his recovery, he helps other injured players rebuild their attitudes as well as their athleticism. On any weeknight at the club's rehab clinic, six or seven wounded footballers are working to bring their bodies back to peak fitness. Walker knows their frustration, but urges a calm approach: "You take whatever's thrown at you." More and more, a faster and more furious game is forcing AFL players to do just that.

OUT OF BOUNDS
Average number of AFL games missed per team per season through injury:

1994 -- 74
1995 -- 83
1996 -- 90
1997 -- 95

Source: AFL Medical Officers Assoc.