Brown breaks to save career
Malcolm Conn
The Australian
April 25, 2006
NATHAN BROWN's future is in limbo. The star Tigers forward will not be allowed to play again until increasing pain in the leg he broke last year has subsided.
A late withdrawal from last weekend's breakthrough victory against Brisbane, Brown has already been ruled out of Friday night's match against fellow struggler Carlton at the MCG.
Richmond club doctor Greg Hickey could not say when Brown, who is playing with a 32cm rod in his leg, would be able to resume but was hopeful the problem would be short term.
"The bottom line is that as the intensity of the games has risen, he's got sorer," Hickey said after a two-hour meeting with Brown and his management at Punt Road yesterday.
Coach Terry Wallace conceded that Brown probably should not have played in his most recent match, against West Coast, the previous weekend.
"When he was doing the warm-up, all of a sudden he would have been in a situation going 'should I be here or shouldn't I be here'," Wallace said. "We don't want that situation for any of our players, let alone Nathan."
Wallace said the club had a low expectation of what it believed Brown could achieve this year.
"I expect him to need another summer (of training) under his belt to get the best out of him."
There was some better news for the Tigers last night, with tagger Mark Chaffey expected to play after recovering from injury and ruckman Trent Knobel proving his fitness with Coburg reserves last Sunday.
Brown's form has slipped significantly since he was one of Richmond's few good players in the opening round during a 19-goal thrashing by his old club, the Western Bulldogs.
A fortnight later against the Eagles in Perth he managed just two possessions.
The normally effervescent and media-friendly Brown refused to comment after yesterday's meeting, leaving the talking to Hickey and Wallace.
"Over the past three weeks Nathan has had increased pain during and after games, with slower recovery," Hickey said.
"X-rays have shown further advance in healing, so the cause of pain is most likely a stress reaction at the fracture site.
"In consultation with Nathan, the decision has been made to rest him in the short-term and then build up his training load until he's as pain-free as possible and ready to play again.
"Right the way through, we have been closely monitoring Nathan's progress and we're certainly comfortable with all the decisions that have been made with regards to his playing future.
"There's no question in our minds, however, that this is only a temporary setback for him and he will be back playing soon."
Wallace denied that Brown had resumed too quickly or had been pushed too hard as the Tigers attempted to get their creative goal kicker ready for the start of the season.
"He'd done all the training. We were really comfortable with the management of Nathan over the summer period," Wallace said.
"We'll just ease him off a little bit just to make sure we get rid of that soreness and then work him back up over the latter part of this week and early part of next week.
"It's a pain tolerance situation and we've just got to manage it.
"He gets the number one tagger every time he goes out on the ground. It's hard enough to get a kick in this competition, let alone when you're sore."
One of the main reasons for Richmond's brilliant start last season was the early form of Brown, playing under his old coach again during Wallace's first year at Punt Road.
He had kicked 34 goals, highlighted by five in the final quarter against Collingwood in round eight, and collected more than 200 possessions in the first nine rounds.
However his season ended in horrific circumstances when he fractured his lower leg badly late in the round 10 match against Melbourne.
The Tigers surprised everyone by winning seven of their first nine matches but following Brown's injury managed just three more victories in a disappointing finish to the year.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18919004-36035,00.html
