AFL's Injury Crisis: Can We Explain It?

[sven_inc]

I fell like this happens every year or two, a preseason 'injury crisis' that's actually just normal.

I agree that injuries happen a lot in preseason every year - I know there have been previous years where there have been a ton of ACLs which thankfully hasn’t been the case this year.

It’s probably highlighted by more big names going down like Bont and Butters.

But we always want to stop short of calling it normal. Common yes, but not normal.

If we rest on the idea that all these injuries are normal then it’s easier to just blame them on things that feel out of our control like bad luck, or moving the wrong way, or overuse etc.

From my experience, we can certainly raise our standards and expectations of what a player does and does not have to put up with - regardless of how hard they train, how much they use their body, etc.