Battling injury: Andrew McPherson's challenging journey at AFL level
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First in
It’s cold and quiet as Andrew McPherson is the first one to step into the gym on another regulation training day at West Lakes. The lights aren’t on, there’s no music playing and the silence is eventually broken by the rhythmic clinking of metal weights as a seated McPherson extends his legs out, then back in, out and in, over and over again just as he has done thousands of times before. It's a Thursday which means main training session of the week and it’s two hours which McPherson will never see as a chore nor take for granted. The 22-year-old had to overcome six hamstring injuries after being drafted in 2017 and at times couldn’t trust his body to get through a training run let alone a game. Which is why before a two-hour training session on the track, he spends over an hour in the gym where he is preparing to train.
Firing
“There’s a whole range of things I do, a bit of Pilates, a bit of getting the hips and glutes going, some isometrics for knee tendons,” he says. “Keaysy (Ben Keays) gets stuck into me, he reckons my gym program is never the same as anyone else’s and I’m doing all these weird exercises. “But it’s about getting warm and getting those muscles firing that I know I’ll be using in the session. “And I’ve found with my body it’s more about getting the reps in and learning to control the muscles so when I’m on the track or in a game, I’m not asking them to do anything they haven’t done before.”
Post-session
The ‘prep-to-train’ period extends post-session as well with hot and cold baths at the Club and taking the plunge in his pool at home or the beach nearby as well. But McPherson doesn’t see it as onerous. For the best part of two years after he was drafted he struggled to get his body through a training session let alone a full game of footy. There were times when the 22-year-old wondered that while his mind was willing to do the work, would his body ever be able to handle what he was asking of it? “Getting re-injured in 2019 and even a bit into the 2020 pre-season, that’s when the doubts started creeping in,” McPherson said. “I was into my third year and still had soft tissue issues, I was frustrated and thinking whether my body would ever get to a point where it could deal with a senior pre-season or go to the next level and actually play AFL, because I hadn’t even come close to the intensity of that.”
Six games
McPherson’s battle with his body started in his draft year when he only played six games at Woodville-West Torrens. But he had shown enough for the Crows, who were coming off a Grand Final, to swoop with Pick 40. “That was huge, I remember being home with the family on draft night and the fact I got to stay in Adelaide was great, then at the same time coming to a Club that had had some success and had just come up short was exciting,” he said. He was still rehabbing a hamstring injury when he walked in the doors at West Lakes but managed to get up and going only for his groins to flare up by January.
Rehabbing
“I didn’t play my first SANFL game until June that year,” he said. “I came back from osteitis pubis, played two SANFL games and in the third game just before half-time I did a hammy and missed the rest of the year. “We were at Unley, I was having a stinker of a day as it was and jumped up for a mark and felt a big clunk in the hamstring which ended up being a bad one. “I felt like I was a long way off, I was still being managed with only 60 per cent game time and I still wasn’t able to get going. “But I was pretty skinny and under-done, hadn’t played a lot of senior footy so it was a good opportunity to put on some weight and strength.”
Modified program
He went into his second pre-season in 2019 hoping for a clean slate but lingering hip and groin issues meant he was still on a modified program. After more soft tissue injuries he eventually played six SANFL games in a row and the Crows were building towards finals. But just when things were looking up, he did another hamstring which ended his 2019 season. “I was watching the Magarey Medal later that year and the round-by-round highlights and I knew someone would see it,” he said. “Tom Doedee text me to say ‘you made the highlight reel’, and it was me chasing someone trying to spoil and pulling up short grabbing the hammy at Prospect.”
Camaraderie
It’s often been said that rehab can be a lonely place and at times McPherson felt that, but it also became a place of camaraderie as well. “Early on I found I wasn’t able to form connections with some of the guys because I wasn’t out there playing and wasn’t out on the track, and on top of that often with rehab you’re on a different schedule than the rest of the group so you might not even see them,” he said. “Obviously I couldn’t earn their respect on the ground and I wasn’t getting the face-to-face time either. “But I was lucky I had some good people in rehab with me along the way. “Tom Doedee when he was rehabbing his ACL was huge, and Duncan Kellaway we formed a pretty close bond because there were some lonely Saturday mornings in the cold of winter here at Footy Park getting a session done.
Support
“You definitely lean on people at different times, whether that’s Emma (Bahr) or other players and support networks outside of footy. “A big thing that helped me was perspective, being able to take a step back and whether it be reading books or listening to things in the news and realising it wasn’t as bad as it seemed at the time. “My mindset was ‘it could be worse so be grateful for what I do have and the opportunity that was still in front of me’.”
Finely tuned
With a finely tuned strength program he went into the 2020 season with renewed expectations and a turning point was when he and the team went into their Queensland hub. “Playing in those reserves games and there were a couple where I went in with quite a tight hammy and a bit of doubt but I pushed through and felt fine,” he said. “So then I started thinking my body was at a point where I knew what was good and bad soreness. “I backed in the work I’d done in the gym and the track and felt confident my body would hold up.” That led to his AFL debut in Round 6 which was the first of nine games for the year. “It was surreal,” he said. “It felt like good reward for a few years of hard work and some pretty dark times.”
Club Champion night
What was also fitting reward was being presented with the Mark Bickley Emerging Talent Award and Dr Brian Sando OAM Trophy for professionalism and dedication to training on Club Champion night. “It was nice to be recognised for some hard work, you obviously don’t do it for the recognition but above all else it was nice to break into the AFL side,” he said. McPherson had also caught the eye of new defensive coach Scott Burns. “When I first decided to come to Adelaide and it was all done and dusted, you get the games from last year and have a look through them,” Burns said during pre-season. “And his (McPherson’s) first eight or nine games just looked AFL, he’s very good defending one-on-one but he has a very good ability of when to come off his opponent and impact or intercept the ball.”
Confidence
That confidence flowed into the 2021 season where McPherson has so far played 12 of 16 games. After taking three years to play his first nine AFL games, the next nine took just nine weeks and he has signed a two-year contract extension while combining footy with mechanical engineering at university. “There’s a bit of sport and anatomy stuff in the degree and I’ve found that to be a bit of a breeze given some of the chats I’ve had with doctors and physios along the journey,” he said. “I’ve learnt a lot. My brother has done heaps of soft tissue injuries as well and I feel like I can almost write him a rehab program based on my experiences.”
