20 Feature
The
S T R A I N
Hamstring injuries remain the curse of the AFL footballer, and just as elusive
for researchers trying to pinpoint their cause.
H
AMSTRING strains topped the
recently published 2010 AFL
Injury Report, again coming
out as the most common injury among
footballers and that responsible for the
most missed playing time.
It was no great surprise given that
hamstring strains have been the most
frequent and costly injury in the AFL for
more than 10 years.
No player is immune to the devastation
that these injuries can bring and recent
years have seen some of our biggest
names hit the turf with the pain, shock
and disappointment of a serious ham-
string strain.
Nathan Buckley, James Hird, Nick
Riewoldt, Daniel Kerr and Matthew
Lloyd – to name a few – limped off the
field with the tell-tale hand on the back
of the thigh, their supporters equally
devastated.
You’ll hear on the news and read in the
papers that a player has “done” a ham-
string or their hammy has “gone”.
In both cases the player has strained a
hamstring muscle. This can range from
a “first degree” strain where some of the
muscle fibres are torn to a “third degree”
strain where the tear extends across the
whole muscle.
A first degree tear will usually see a
player out for three to four weeks, where
a high-grade tear could see a player
under the knife and in rehab for months.
Not only are hamstring strains costly
for the player and the club in terms of
performance, they are costing the clubs
a packet.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement
for AFL players stipulates that they are
entitled to 100 per cent of their usual
match payments for up to 30 games
missed as a result of an injury incurred
while training or playing.
Given the average number of games
missed through hamstring strains for
each club in a year is 20, this adds up
to a notional cost of hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars annually in payments to
injured players and their onfield replace-
ments.
This injury presents an age-old prob-
lem for the AFL, and mountains (or
more aptly forests) of research have been
conducted into this perplexing injury
over many decades.
Given the research into the causes and
prevention, it’s surprising to see that
the average number of new hamstring
strains each year in AFL clubs now (six)
is exactly the same as it was in 2001.
The obvious question is why hamstring
strains are still so common when so
much research time and money has been
poured into solving the problem?
Even the likes of Nathan Buckley, with
all of the resources of the Collingwood
Football Club at his disposal and the
most experienced medicos in the coun-
Inside Football
Dr Jodie Richardson
is showing!
n HAMSTRUNG: Nick Riewoldt tears
his early in the 2010 season.
try working with him, was not
immune to this unforgiving
injury.
Hamstring injuries are the
most common injury in sports
involving rapid acceleration
and sprinting.
There is no question that
the speed of our game has
increased phenomenally over
the years, which makes for an
awesome spectator sport, but
this has come at a cost.
A study entitled Evolution
of Australian Football showed
that the speed of the game doubled in the Picture a classic football
period 1961 to 1997. photo of a player just after kicking the hamstring injury in the previous 12
Of course with the introduction of a ball, support leg vertical, kicking leg months are at increased risk of another
fourth interchange player, the game had horizontal to the ground with the ham- hamstring injury to the same leg.
never been faster. strings at full stretch, the hip joint flexed The problem with age and injury his-
Unfortunately, an overall increase in and knee joint fully extended. tory is that they are irreversible risk
injury rates paralleled this increase in During activity, the hamstrings repeat- factors.
game speed. edly develop force while at the same Other known risk factors that cannot
Research has shown that the incidence time being lengthened, which can lead be modified include indigenous race,
of hamstring injuries decreases as run- to overstraining of the muscle fibres and though these players may be more likely
ning speed is decreased. subsequent injury. to experience hamstring injuries purely
However, it remains to be seen whether Along with these functional aspects of due to their talent for speed.
the latest changes to the interchange the muscle group, there are several risk Previous injury to the calf, knee, ankle
rules, replacing one interchange player factors that make a player more suscep- or groin can also render a player more
with a substitute, has the desired effect of tible to a hamstring strain. susceptible to a hamstring injury.
reducing game speed, hamstring injury Researchers have conclusively shown Research around other potential risk
rates and injury rates in general. that AFL players over 24 years of age are factors including hamstring strength,
The hamstrings are comprised of three four times more likely to suffer ham- hamstring to quadriceps strength ratio,
muscles on the back of the thigh that string strains than players 18-23. flexibility, fatigue, influence of warm-
cross both the hip and the knee joints. Also, players who have sustained a up, neural tension, optimum knee angle
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

for peak hamstring torque and
lumbar spine region pathol-
ogy, among others, is incon-
clusive.
It’s easy to get caught up
in the stats around ham-
string strains and to view the
problem from an academic
perspective; I too have been
guilty of this.
It’s not until you have a chat
with someone who has expe-
rienced the most severe type
of hamstring strain that you
get a really good understand-
ing of the impact of this type
of injury, both personally and
professionally.
Bombers fans in particular
will remember back in Round
3, 2006 when champion full
forward Matthew Lloyd went
down with a severe hamstring
injury in the opening minutes
of the third quarter against the BLACKOUT: Matthew Lloyd tries to regain his composure after a severe hamstring strain.
Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium.
‘I’m telling you, I blacked out through
Scans revealed that one of
Lloyd’s hamstring muscles
was three-quarters torn off
the pelvic bone.
Lloyd describes the pain
the pain before the players even fell
of the injury being so great
that he blacked out before
on top of me.’
he even hit the ground.
“The first lead after half time, I was on
a maximum speed lead and went to arch
my body forward to get a bit more distance
away from my opponent,” Lloyd recalled.
“The ball was about a metre away from
me as I went up for a mark and it was like I
just blacked out.
“A couple of players crashed down on top
of me and I couldn’t get up off the ground,
I had nausea, and thought to myself I can’t
even get up off the ground, but with the
help of some trainers I limped off.
“The physio said to me I reckon it’s a
corkie or something but I said no, I’m tell-
ing you, I blacked out through the pain
before the players even fell on top of me.”
No doubt a great disappointment about
this injury for Lloyd is that it could have
been avoided had he rested after a prior
warning.
“I feel like I might have strained my ham-
string in a tackle on the half-time siren,”
he said.
“I went in at half time and did some tests
and I said I reckon I can play at 80 per cent
and try and play out the game.”
You don’t get to champion status without
guts and determination, qualities that had
served him well, and together with his
athleticism and extraordinary skills, Lloyd
was probably in the best form of his career
prior to his injury.
There was so much inflammation and
swelling in Lloyd’s leg in the days follow-
ing his injury that he had to wait a week to
even have it scanned to find out the extent
of the damage.
The scan revealed a major tear in the
muscle, and surgery was performed to
repair the damage two weeks after the
incident.
This was the beginning of a long road to
recovery for Lloyd.
“Automatically after the operation, I
instantly felt better but I didn’t feel good
about myself in the leg for probably nine
months,” he said.
Nineteen weeks after the initial injury,
Lloyd joined in with a skills session but
soon after during pre-season training for
season 2007, he suffered hamstring ten-
donitis.
“I couldn’t kick, I felt like I was kicking as
– MATTHEW LLOYD
hard as I could and I was only kicking the
ball 30 metres,” he said.
Lloyd describes his rehabilitation with
exercise physiologist John Quinn, the
Bombers’ head fitness coach at the time,
as first class.
Quinn worked with him one-on-one
around the needs of the rest of the team,
but it was a long road.
Lloyd’s rehabilitation initially focused on feeling as confident within myself,” he said.
getting some movement in the leg and
basic weight bearing, followed by learning
to walk again and slowly building up to
jogging, running and sprinting over the
following months.
About five months after the surgery Lloyd
joined Quinn and Olympic athlete Lauren
Hewitt performing hill running and sprints
to get some speed back into his legs.
This was combined with strength train-
ing and core strengthening work through
WINGED EAGLE: Daniel Kerr.
Inside Football
pilates three times a week for 12 months.
When getting back into the game in 2007,
Lloyd describes feeling like he was starting
all over again. He felt like he’d never played
and was a rookie coming into the system
again.
“In the time I was out, there were a few
rule changes, the game was quicker and
I probably wasn’t as explosive and wasn’t
“I just felt like I fell right behind in the
year that I didn’t play footy.
“My pre-season was OK but I suffered the
tendonitis so I missed four or five weeks of
training through that as well.
“I probably felt I was in the prime of my
career when it happened and I went OK but
was never the same again.”
The same appears to be true for Nick
Riewoldt, who injured his hamstring in
Round 3 2010, according to a recent Herald
Sun article by Mike Sheahan.
Sheahan documented Riewoldt’s goal
kicking accuracy as 61.8 per cent before
and 46.2 per cent after his hamstring strain.
Research does show decreased perfor-
mance on return to competition after a
hamstring strain but, of course, we can-
not discount other factors that could be
impacting on Riewoldt’s accuracy, not the
least of which could be the likelihood of a
recurrent hamstring injury.
Amid the doom and gloom around
hammy strains, there is some good news
for players.
The AFL injury report showed the low-
est recurrence rate ever reported for these
injuries.
Having been as high as 30 per cent in
2002, the 2010 recurrence rate was less
than half this at 14 per cent, meaning that
only one in seven players will experience
another hamstring injury to the same leg
in the same football season.
Research shows that the highest propor-
tion (12.6 per cent) of hamstring strains
will occur in the first week upon a player’s
return to competition, but the risk of recur-
rence remains high for weeks thereafter
and recurrent injuries can occur with more
severe consequences for a player.
The reduced recurrence rate demon-
strates that clubs are being more conserva-
tive in their management of these injuries.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Inside the game 21
Coaching contracts
courting challenge
When it comes to a coach
breaking a contract to change
clubs, the legal argument may
come down to restraint of trade
versus ownership of intellectual
capital, writes lawyer Andrew
Crabb.
AFTER HIS GRAND Final win last year,
Collingwood coach Michael Malthouse
spoke to assembled media about his
admiration for the German Field Marshall
Erwin Rommel, whose daring, risk-taking
and aggression won him many battles
in Africa in World War II against Allied
forces that always outnumbered him and
usually had better lines of supply.
Malthouse’s words about game plans and
strategy weren’t specific but referred to
Collingwood’s game strategy of the “box
formation”, which was based on combat
formations of Roman legions.
Given Malthouse was also answering
questions about his club’s coaching
succession plans, which have Nathan
Buckley taking over next year, it is also
true that, whether consciously or not, the
STRATEGISTS: Mick
Malthouse (above) and
premiership coach was indirectly reminding the
Erwin Rommel (top).
Collingwood club board that ideas about strategy,
which make its team more competitive, are a
form of intellectual capital that Malthouse carries around in his head.
Asked last year about Malthouse’s future when moved out of the
senior coaching position at the end of this season, Magpie president
Eddie McGuire said he was prepared to sue Malthouse if he breached his
contract and went to another club.
Ron Barrassi has defined the coach as a storehouse of strategic
information that brings competitive value to a club in ways that a star
player cannot.
He says that the game of AFL evolves in ways that other coaches will
always try to emulate as new strategies are developed and every team
strives for competitive advantage.
So the issue of Malthouse’s future and whether he might move to
another club differs in ways that the transfer of a star player does not.
When players change clubs, they can take only their football abilities
with them; a champion coach swapping clubs can take trade strategies
and secrets and commercial connections with him.
After lifting Collingwood from as low as 15th in 2005 to a premier­
ship in 2010 and flag favourites for 2011, Malthouse is in the unenviable
position of having to relinquish control at the peak of his career.
But can coaches generally move to other clubs when they want to?
Or could their contracts with their current club create a legal bar that
prevent them being able to take a similar senior coaching job elsewhere?
And if they are able to transfer to another club, what “intellectual
property” can they take with them?
Legally, the issue is known as “restraint of trade”, or sometimes
“employment restraints”, and it’s been gathering a lot more attention in
the courts around Australia recently as employers and corporations – in
much the same way as football clubs – look to protect their intellectual
capital and proprietary interests, and to stop former employees leaving a
business and taking trade secrets, strategies, clients and, sometimes, other
employees with them.
In the courts, this has become more common with litigation in NSW
and Victoria to enforce restraint of trade or employment agreements
rising sharply from virtually no cases in the mid-1990s to an average of
12 per year.
In the past, people were usually advised that non-compete clauses in
their contracts could be ignored but now, as our workforce develops
into more of a knowledge-based economy, the intellectual capital a
former senior employee, or director, has with them when they leave is
more commonly a worry that causes disputes.
Restraint of trade is always an argument between the public interest to
fairly protect the legitimate enforceable interests of a company (including
a football club) against the public interest for fair competition in the
broader market place.
The example of coaches, and any potential issue about whether they
will lawfully be able to break their contracts with clubs and coach
elsewhere, may be a question of whether factors such as their inside
knowledge of their club’s operations and playing strategies will constitute
a legally enforceable proprietary interest of the club, or whether it is just
a question of the coach’s skill supported by his ability to inspire players.
With the recent $1.2 billion broadcasting rights deal it’s clear that,
as professional sports like AFL become more lucrative, we will see an
increase in legal disputes over vital senior positions.
n Andrew Crabb is a solicitor with the law firm Taylor & Scott.