Simmonds to provide run for Richmond
Courtney Walsh | March 22, 2008 | The Australian
LIKE his Richmond team-mates, Troy Simmonds has started this season motoring.
Not only has the talented ruckman been burning on the running track while training alongside some of Australia's brightest sprinting hopes, he has also become something of a motor-mouth at home after overcoming a potentially life-threatening lung condition that capped a painful 2007.
The 29-year-old demonstrated his importance to the Tigers on Thursday night by seizing control of the ruck as Richmond turned a 25-point deficit midway through the second term into a 17.7 (109) to 11.13 (79) win that allows supporters to say they topped the ladder this year, even if for only two days.
The 19 hit-outs and 17 possessions gleaned in a dominant performance match Simmonds's average output from 2006, his best season in a decade-long career that started at Melbourne and headed to Fremantle before his much-anticipated arrival at Punt Road in 2005.
Richmond desperately missed that output last season, with Simmonds sidelined initially by a broken ankle and then through a mystery blood clot that forced him into hospital last August.
Little wonder that Simmonds was delighted to simply get through Thursday's match, regardless of the result.
"Just to get through the game healthy, after what I went through last season, meant a lot to me," he said.
"It was the hardest year of football I have ever experienced, 2007, obviously with breaking my ankle in the pre-season, which meant I was never going to be as fit as I wanted too, and no matter what I did, I could never get it quite right.
"What made it more frustrating is that our ruck stocks were low. Then obviously I had the blood clot late in the year and that really was a scare.
"I didn't realise until I got the all-clear from the surgeon in late January that really I was very lucky, that things could have been a lot worse."
Simmonds describes the health scare as a life-changing experience.
Initially, that change occurred away from Punt Road, with Simmonds looking to loved ones to share his burden.
"You do need to talk to people," he said.
"If you let it bottle up inside, it hurts you, and I've been lucky to have some great people around me to listen.
"There are a couple of people I respect, who I've spoken to about it, and it's become a life-changing thing for me. You just see things so differently."
Importantly for Richmond, the potential health problem has also put him back on the track that saw his name mentioned as a potential All-Australian ruckman in 2006.
Simmonds has employed his own sprint trainer, former Fremantle conditioning coach Adam Larcom, to sharpen his speed in sessions that complement his regular training with Richmond.
Standing at 196cm and weighing 100kg, Simmonds is, not surprisingly, well short of Olympic speed.
But that has not stopped him training at Olympic Park alongside Adam Basil, a member of the 4x100m Australian team that finished sixth in Athens in 2004.
Or with Aaron Rouge-Serret, an improving 20-year-old sprinter who clocked 10.25sec in Toowoomba recently and warmly greeted Simmonds in the MCG rooms following the win over Carlton.
Obviously, the young sprinter does not mind training alongside a big block clocking 11.7s for the blue-riband sprint.
"That's not bad for a big guy," Simmonds said.
"It's a strength of mine and I've believed that you should work on your strengths just as much as you work on your weaknesses.
"I suppose with the condition I had, you start looking outside the square a bit and everything I'm doing, I'm trying to do at 100 per cent.
"There were a few things in terms of football that I've wanted to work on, but just in terms of life generally. It's a personal thing, but it has certainly helped me."
The positives were evident against Carlton, with Simmonds able to reach contests and stretch opposing ruckman Cameron Cloke with his speed.
But Cloke was not alone in being out-paced by the Tigers, a fact noted by Carlton officials after the match.
Simmonds said Richmond's ability to sustain the frantic fold-back and then run-and-handball style that eventually wore down Carlton was predominantly due to having a full list from which to choose.
"Everyone has been up and running, which I think is the main thing," he said.
"It is the first time for this club that we've had all the senior guys out there training in the pre-season.
"I think there is more depth in the club now and there were a number of guys that missed out on Thursday that have been playing really well, so that is a good sign.
"We played some good footy in the last month of last season and then we've worked further at it over the pre-season, and hopefully, it will stand us in good stead for this year.
"We're off to a good start but we do have a long way to go."
With eight days until their second-round match against the Kangaroos, there is no reason why the Tigers should not be full of run again.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23412959-5012432,00.html
