'Full throttle' for Dusty after 'significant corkie'Jennifer Phelan
afl.com.au
Sep 19, 2018 9:53AMDUSTIN Martin is scheduled to train at "full throttle" on Wednesday after a 13-day battle with a corked thigh that bled down into his knee, Richmond coach Damien Hardwick says.
The Brownlow medallist will test out the injury in the Tigers' main session at Punt Road and is expected to line up against Collingwood on Friday night.
Hardwick said the Tigers had considered having the injury drained this week but the amount of blood inside his knee joint meant it wasn't necessary.
"It was a pretty significant corkie with bleeding down into his knee that takes a little bit of time to settle," Hardwick said before training.
"At this time of year, we don't take any risks with training, so he'll be available to play this weekend.
"We'll get a fair indication [today] whether he's 95 per cent or 100 per cent – not many players are 100 per cent these days at this stage of the year anyway.
"We're confident he'll be at his best, he's had a great finals series and we're looking forward to that continuing on Friday night."
Martin has been limited at training since suffering the injury against Hawthorn on September 6 in the first final.
The Tigers went into denial mode on both Friday and Monday when quizzed on why Martin missed large portions of their training sessions.
After coming clean on Wednesday on the extent of the cork that had affected Martin's knee, Hardwick said he didn't expect it to affect the time his star spent forward and in the midfield.
"The way Dustin's role pans out on game day is probably dependent on the opposition," he said.
"At various stages we'll need him on the ball and at various stages we'll need him up forward.
"The injury is not that significant that it will change his role.
"He's battled through these things before. We've had the week off, so we haven't been in any rush to get him out to train to make sure he plays, we'll just take a very conservative approach.
"The reality is, he's not going to get any fitter or stronger or better now, so all we've got to do is get him to the line and make sure he plays."
Collingwood's Jeremy Howe missed four games with a badly corked thigh in the lead up to finals, with the deep hematoma needing to be drained to allow him to regain full movement in his leg.
Hardwick said Martin's was "a completely different" injury.
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-09-19/dusty-to-train-full-throttle-after-significant-corkie
