How Tigers rebuilt a vital cog in Coughlan
14 May 2005
Herald Sun
Michael Horan
At 21, Mark Coughlan had the world at his feet. If only they would carry him. A crippling groin injury cut him down before he really got going. Here, he retraces the long, lonely road back.MARK Coughlan, in the words of his coach Terry Wallace, has a big "engine."
The 23-year-old Tiger, who two years ago won the Jack Dyer Medal for the club's best-and-fairest, amassed 38 disposals in Richmond's record 85-point win over Carlton last weekend to confirm the motor is perfectly tuned.
Yet only six months ago the former Perth boy had trouble walking without discomfort, so bad was his chronic groin problem.
Last season he missed 15 matches due to what the club calls pubic instability, an extension of the osteitis pubis he suffered when he first arrived at Richmond four years ago.
Now the vital "Cog" is in top condition and that big engine is purring. Looking back, it has been a long, tough road back to the big time.
March 26, 2004.THE new season brought new hope for the Tigers while Coughlan, fresh from his best-and-fairest triumph the year before, was a welcome sight in the midfield as Richmond thumped Collingwood by 40 points in the opening game.
Things couldn't have begun better, but the busy midfielder already knew his body wasn't right and the recent injections that had settled his troublesome condition could soon wear off.
Over the next month those fears became fact as all the symptoms of the pubic instability he had come to know conspired to reduce his game to mediocrity, or even worse.
Again he felt the restrictive movement when bending over the ball, the lack of initial pace when taking off to lead or chase and the pain around the groins – anywhere from a dull ache to sharp, stabbing sensations.
By the end of the first month three straight defeats had followed that initial win and his own game had deteriorated dramatically. And, after every match, his body hurt that much more.
"You'd feel it most the next morning. You try to get out of bed and everything pulls around your stomach. The discomfort grew and the training just got harder," Coughlan recalled this week.
"Right from the first game it wasn't great. It was probably worse a month earlier, but I was on a fair few anti-inflammatories and some other things to try and get through the games.
"But pulling up after the games I was no good. I really felt it during the week.
Over that five-week period it affected me in some games more than others, but post-game it was getting worse every week."
April 23, 2004THE Richmond rooms in the bowels of Telstra Dome was an unhappy place.Coughlan was a non-event as Adelaide pasted the Tigers by 75 points to make the ledger one win and four losses. But for the No. 24, the situation was far more dire.
"Just the way I was performing it was quite obvious I couldn't keep going," Coughlan said.
"I went over to the physio and said, `I don't think we can go any further here, I'm a burden on the team. I can't do it'."
At the time he felt a sense of relief, but he also knew he faced a long and testing road if he wanted to play league football again.
"Before the season started it was bad, but after a couple of injections it felt quite good for a few weeks and I guess I thought I might have been OK," he said.
"But I knew deep down it was only masking the problem. It was a false indication of where I was at. I knew I was in for a long haul."
For the next 15 weeks Coughlan was sidelined and in the care of rehabilitation coach Warren Kofoed and strengthening and fitness coach Matt Hornesby.
Every day Kofoed would oversee a progressive running program, while Hornesby mapped out a cross-training regimen that involved cycling, swimming, rowing and boxing. Coughlan would become a devotee of pilates. He would do daily strengthening work in the gym.
In all, a program that is now a lifestyle for as long as Coughlan plays AFL football.
"It was a biomechanical weakness. Other players have problems with hamstrings, shoulders or whatever, for Cogs it was a pubic instability problem, so we had to structure a program to fix it," Hornesby said.
"He just wasn't able to do things he was capable of. He couldn't function at an appropriate level for the AFL. If you're not right at the top level, you get found out pretty quickly."
The challenge was there to fix a chronic problem, but their job was made easier by the patient himself.
"There were times when he would be very frustrated with the situation he was in, but he would never compromise the work he would put in. He pushes his limits at every session. He's a great worker," Hornesby said.
"Even now you'll find him in the gym every day to do strengthening work."
Dedicated he was, but not always happy. Coughlan admits the "all work, no play" regimen at times got him down.
"It did, yes. You never want anyone else to get injured, but you almost hoped there would be someone else down there to train with," he rued. "There was the odd guy down with a hammy strain, but usually I was always the one down there. You do feel odd, no matter how good the guys are you feel isolated, like you're not offering much to them at all."
August 22, 2004AFTER 15 weeks in limbo, coach Danny Frawley got his star midfielder back for the final two games of the season, starting with the Round 21 clash at the MCG against Hawthorn.
Coughlan was itching for the big time, with a couple of runs with Coburg in the VFL serving only to increase his impatience to return.
And he could still feel the pain.
"It was getting better, but it was still there," he said.
"I'd played a couple of games in the VFL and was getting very frustrated – I actually got reported and rubbed out for a week. But my condition was good enough for me to get through the last two games of the year.
"It was a taste, at least."
A few weeks after the last game Coughlan bottomed out physically, to the point where he wondered if he would ever get over the problem.
He had taken his girlfriend Gemma on a holiday to Thailand during the post-season break, a rest period in which his body didn't cope.
"It was really stiff, to walk even. The nature of the injury is that when you stop running it gets worse for the first two months or so," Coughlan said.
"I thought if I'm in this state now, how long is it all going to take? It was a bit of an uncertain future."
January 8, 2005WHEN the Tiger players returned from the short Christmas break to resume pre-season training, Coughlan had not left the isolation of his cross-training routine.
More than two months into the Wallace regime and he hadn't been allowed to even think about kicking a footy.
Wallace was putting his players through some gruelling sessions and all Coughlan could do was work on his own in the gym.
"My sessions would go as long as the guys were out there training. They had some pretty marathon sessions – they'd be out there for three hours sometimes – so I couldn't really stop until they did," he said.
Six days a week he cross-trained, building strength and forging his body to be able to cope with that biomechanical fault.
From day one Wallace had put his faith in Hornesby and Kofoed, but the pre-season clock was ticking and the coach knew Coughlan was the jewel in the Tigers' midfield crown. The team needed its star fit and ready to go by Round 1.
"I was probably getting impatient with him because he spent quite a bit of time off the track," Wallace confessed.
"He was working his butt off – he's a workaholic – he would do every second of every session if you wanted him to.
"He was doing that much pool work, boxing and that sort of stuff, but the medical and fitness staff were really vigilant in the fact that they didn't want him to come back too early. They were very strong on the fact of not wanting him to do too much too early.
"We kept him away from the footy sessions because of his groins - safeguarding against over-kicking – we just didn't want to over-bake him with that sort of stuff. He's a real worker and you have to restrain him."
With the Wizard Cup approaching, Coughlan emerged from his isolation and set himself the task of returning to normal training – and football.
"I was still going through that development phase and still felt a bit weak," he said.
"There was still a little bit of pain during or after sessions and I still didn't kick on my left foot through January and February.
"But I could feel it getting stronger and I knew I was on the way back."
March 4, 2005.OF ALL places, Alice Springs was the site of Coughlan's return in a black and yellow jumper.
The Tigers were playing a pre-season challenge match against Fremantle on the Wizard Cup semi-finals weekend.
No points were at stake, and no prizemoney, but perhaps a big, long-term dividend loomed if Coughlan could pass his first serious test under top-level pressure.
He had already participated in a couple of scratch matches and come through unscathed, so it was time for Wallace to feed his young star back into mainstream footy.
"Even though he's missed so much of the general pre-season, I knew his fitness wouldn't be too much of a problem. With his cross-training and work ethic, there was no doubt he was as fit, if not fitter, than the fittest guy on the list," Wallace said.
The intangible was whether all the strengthening work and all the patience would pay off.
It did.
May 7, 2005.MORE than 50,000 turned up to the MCG last Saturday to see the Tigers tackle their century-old foe and recent nemesis, Carlton.
They had already failed two acid tests – against last year's preliminary finalists Geelong and St Kilda – but had won all of their four other matches.
Coughlan would go up against Nick Stevens, the Blues' standout midfielder and their battle would go a long way towards deciding the outcome of the clash. Big assignment, big stage, the biggest test since returning from the long lay-off.
The Tiger responded to the challenge with 20 possessions in the first half to set up a stunning 77-point break at halftime – a lead equal to the Tigers' greatest winning margin against Carlton.
There would be no running out of steam, no pain and certainly no mercy. His disposals had climbed to 38 at the final siren and Coughlan was unanimously voted best afield. More importantly, there was not a twinge of discomfort.
Seven rounds gone and he's averaging 22 touches a game. Fit and flying.
"Since coming back from Alice Springs I've had no trouble at all. I feel really good," Coughlan said.
"I've got the strength back, that (groin) area is certainly better than it was in 2003. It (the future) is certainly looking good. With all the cross-training I got reasonably fit, cardiovascular wise, and I think it only takes about four games in the midfield to get your football fitness back."
After the Tigers rout, Wallace extolled the virtues of his players at the press conference, naming Coughlan only in passing along with the rest of the day's heroes, but afterwards he expanded on the midfielder's performance in a private chat.
"His workrate is sensational, he's got a great engine," the coach enthused.
With fighting fury, Mark Coughlan is back in a big way at Tigerland.
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