Opportunity knocks for Knobel
Michael Gleeson
The Age
February 7, 2007
TRENT Knobel has spent a career on the fringe of AFL football. Unable to claim the No. 1 ruck position at either Richmond or St Kilda for an extended period, neither has he been able to be discounted.
A promising first year at Richmond in 2005 was followed by one to forget. When teammate Troy Simmonds broke an ankle a fortnight ago, the need for the ruckman to rediscover the form of his first year was thrown into sharper focus.
The club is still optimistic that its No. 1 ruckman will be available for round one of the home-and-away season on April 1, though doubtless he will be short of fitness.
The Simmonds injury became a bigger issue after Mark Coughlan had a season-ending knee injury that will require a second reconstruction. Suddenly, the pre-season that was going so well had lost two players in as many weeks.
Knobel thus has not only the opportunity, but the responsibility, to recapture the form of which he is capable.
"It does put a bit of pressure on me, but 'Simmo' is ahead of schedule. I think he should be right for round one, but obviously there is an opportunity to get myself back into the side in the NAB Cup," Knobel said yesterday.
"I think there was always a plan that Simmo and I could work well together in the ruck throughout the year and, hopefully, it can pan out that way.
"I … have had these sorts of years all throughout my career … I have never had that consistent senior football, so it is a very important year for me, yes. Am I looking forward to it? Yes. Am I worried about it? No. I just want to get out there and play senior football again.
"Hopefully, we can work together in whatever way works … I didn't get out there a lot last year, I just never really got started. I injured myself in a pre-season game, then had a lot of little niggly injuries and a bad ankle injury, which I had surgery on at the end of the year."
An unofficial part of Knobel's rehabilitation has been to get in the water. "The surfing is good," he said, "it is good physically. You get in water and you don't have a care in the world. I love it."
Coach Terry Wallace said yesterday: "Like every club, you just want to have a little bit of luck go on your side so you can get your best team out there.
"Realistically, we believe we are putting a good enough squad together and you just have to have depth. I think every club in the competition is that way …"
For Simmonds, that means Knobel stepping into the breach. For Coughlan, it puts pressure back on Dean Polo to sustain the bright form of the second half of last season. Similarly, Nathan Brown will be expected to resume the sorts of roles and form that put him in the elite bracket of the competition before he broke his leg in 2005.
"It is still a difficult situation for him (Brown)," Wallace said. "It probably took him six years — it wasn't one year — to get up to the form and the confidence and the fitness levels all at the one time to make him the player he was prior to the injury. I expect him to be a very good player for us. Whether he reaches the levels he was at before, we will wait and see.
"We have made no bones about what we are: a developing, improving team. I look around at the guys and they are a little bit stronger, a little bit more mature.
"Over the next few years, we have to sort of show something. The group knows that.
"We have come from a heck of a long way back. We have made ground, but we haven't got … inside the final eight yet, so we are only part way along the journey.
"(Fremantle) was around ninth two years in a row and then went bang, so when that comes, who knows? We all hope it comes round one and beyond, but whether it is this year or 12 months away, providing we keep improving … that is the main thing."
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