In the hours after Nick Riewoldt was cleared of a season-ending knee injury, and perhaps career-ending last Saturday night, he received a photo from Western Bulldogs’ favourite son Bob Murphy, which brought a wry grin to his face.
“We’ve got a great relationship Bob and I. He actually sent me a photo on Saturday night after I got stretchered off of him walking off the ground after he’d done his ACL. So I appreciated that - he’s got a good sense of humour,” Riewoldt told The Footy Show on Wednesday night.
On almost the identical patch of grass at the Lockett end of Etihad Stadium where Murphy’s season came to a devastating end 12 months ago, Riewoldt thought he might have suffered the same career threatening injury.
“I did think for a moment there that the end of my career was upon me. I did contemplate it being the end of my career, I contemplated waving to the crowd on my way off, which I would have made a real fool of myself,” Riewoldt said.
As a dejected Riewoldt sat on the grass waiting for the stretcher to remove him from the ground, the six-time Trevor Barker Award winner revealed how his football mortality swam around in his head while 36,000 people stared at him and many watched on from home.
“I’m 35 at the end of this year, so to think I might have had to go through a reconstruction and then be 35 and whether the club would have been prepared to give me another year; they’re all the things that I was thinking about as I was sitting there on the turf,” he said.
“It’s amazing what your mind is able to process and the amount of 'what if’s' you’re able to work your way through and rationalise while you’re sitting there. But it was only for two or three minutes.”
Fortunately, the end is not right now for Riewoldt. He will miss at least the next two weeks and potentially up to six, but he will return in the not too distant future.
