Kane Johnson won't call it quits at Richmond
Jon Ralph | May 25, 2009
RICHMOND has denied rumours former captain Kane Johnson was poised to retire, saying he was determined to play this year.
Rejecting reports he was considering his future because of a persistent knee injury, Richmond said Johnson would train at Punt Rd this morning.
Johnson has been hampered by a posterior cruciate injury since late February and is not back in full training.
He is known to be livid at being portrayed as an instigator of the crisis meeting that put coach Terry Wallace's future in doubt last week.
Tigers' head of football Craig Cameron said the 31-year-old would train this morning, hopeful of readying his body for a senior recall.
Asked whether Johnson was furious at the events of the past week, Cameron replied: "I am not going to comment on that, because to be honest we are trying to put it behind us a bit. He will definitely be training tomorrow.
"Someone called me and asked me if he had retired, which is also not true."
Johnson, considered likely to retire at the end of the season, is at least a month away from a senior return.
He has been told he must train fully for two weeks to be elevated from the long-term injury list, and is yet to train with the main group.
He would have a lengthy spell at VFL affiliate Coburg to push for senior selection.
"He is probably taking a little longer than we expected to recover from his knee, but outside of that everything's fine," Cameron said.
"They are funny things, posterior cruciates, so it's just taking longer than expected. The bottom line is that he had to do two solid weeks on the track, so until he's done that we won't take him off the long-term injury list."
It has been reported Johnson has had serious misgivings about Wallace for a year, and was a key participant in the push to have him removed.
It is known Johnson and fellow veteran Troy Simmonds feel they have been hung out to dry by leaked information that paints them as the agitators in last week's drama.
Teammate Matthew Richardson yesterday described that version of events "an absolute disgrace".
The senior group is emphatic that the leaks detailing who approached Wallace to ask him to consider his future did not come from the players.
While Wallace's furious tirade towards Mitch Morton seems to have been leaked unwittingly by a player, the senior group had nothing to gain by revealing Monday's chain of events.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25531388-19742,00.html
