A lot of the so-called experts were predicting Courtney would never play football again after he dislocated his left hip in Perth in 2003. In fact some said he would never run again. He has now done both and that is why I have no doubt that we will play AFL football. We now just need to get some consistency about his training and playing.
If we can do that I think it will be very good news for this football club. You have to remember that if he hadn’t been injured, Courtney probably would have been a first round draft pick. We think it is worth the gamble to rehabilitate him. We all knew going into this, it was going to be 18-month project. At the end of the day, none of us – least of all Courtney himself - wanted to die wondering what might have been.
When Courtney initially injured himself, he ripped out a large piece of the surface of his femur which is a weight-bearing bone. This took a long time to heal. For every specialist that said he will be able to run again, I could give you nine that said he would not. He played a few games last year but came across some challenges in the pre season.
Since the injury, some fibrous cartilage has grown back but this will never fully make up for the original chunk of bone that came out of his femur. It is almost without doubt that he will have long-term affects from this injury - such as arthritis.
Courtney commented a few times during the pre season that he was experiencing more pain than usual and stiffness through the joint. We sent him off for all the x-rays and scans and they didn’t indicate any problem. To Bruce Reid’s credit – our club doctor - he insisted that there must be something there and requested an arthroscopy.
There was a bone fragment about the size of a 50c piece caught in his hip. This was removed. We now know that as Courtney's hip healed, some of the original surface came away into the joint. The fact that it was so big leaves us with no doubt that this young bloke was in considerable pain for a long time.
It was undoubtedly a setback for Courtney and he has subsequently been put on our long-term injury list.
But his attitude has been tremendous. At first I don't think he really knew how hard it was going to be to overcome this problem. He certainly does now. But he does not miss a beat and is always looking to push forward. Probably his biggest failing is that he does not communicate that well - he gets communication mixed up with whinging!
Naturally he gets down sometimes because he would rather be playing footy like everyone else. But this soon passes and he knows that his time will come. He is very popular here at Essendon and will be a great asset to the team when he takes the ground.
Personally, it is always disappointing to see a player constantly battling with injury but it is just a part of the job. I think that we are getting closer to solving the problem so that keeps everyone positive. Surely it can’t be that easy to get it right first go! Rather than get deflated I get a bit angry with myself for not seeing the other possible solutions.
In Courtney's case, you would have to think that somewhere in the world of more than four billion people, that someone has recovered from a dislocated hip. My challenge is to find that one in four billion - or at least make Courtney the one!
Personally I have no doubt that Courtney will play AFL football - sooner rather than later. It never has been a case of ""if"" for me - just a matter of ""when"". I would think we will see him well before the end of season 2004.
