Swans midfielder Luke Parker has returned to full-intensity training for the first time since fracturing his ankle and sitting out this year’s finals series.
The 23-year-old was eased back into pre-season initially, focusing on “getting the miles back in the legs”, but has increased his workload over the past two weeks and has all but fully recovered from the injury suffered in Round 20 against Collingwood.
An in-season operation, which involved inserting a 20cm rod to fuse the three-way fracture back together, sidelined Parker for the rest of the season including the qualifying final against Fremantle and semi-final against North Melbourne.
Rehabilitation has been slow and steady but Parker is confident the conservative approach has paid off.
“The leg is coming along really well, I’m really happy with how its going,” he said.
“I wasn’t able to come straight in and do full training and skills because I had only done a bit of long distance running and didn’t really run (extensively) for about 12 weeks.
“There was a bit of tenderness every now and then during the first two weeks. Now I’m slowly getting back into skill work and getting through sessions without any pain.”
Parker was back training just 10 days after the procedure, but couldn’t break into anything more than a jog which dispelled talk of the 2014 Club Champion playing a surprise part in finals.
Momentum built around a possible “fairy tale finish” for both Parker and Kieren Jack, who was also vying for a miraculous comeback from injury, but time simply ran out.
“I think we might have just played for the sake of playing,” Parker revealed.
“In the long run I think it was better that I didn’t play, I think at the time I really wanted to get back and I had in my head I was going to have a fairy tale finish but obviously that wasn’t the case.
“I’ve moved on, accepted that and looking forward to next season.”
Parker is expected to keep busy over the Christmas break before lifting the intensity in the build up to the Swans’ first NAB Challenge match on February 20.
With the substitute rule now abolished and interchange cap reduced for 2016, Parker and his fellow on-ballers will need to be even fitter to help cope with the growing demands of AFL football.
He says this will present opportunity for youngsters Tom Mitchell, Dan Robinson, Isaac Heeney and Brandon Jack to push up through the midfield and play an even bigger role within the side.
“The good thing is we’ve got a lot of blokes going through there now and we’ve been able to develop guys like Heeney and Mitchell, they got a lot more time in there last season,” Parker added.
“Our midfield group is still pretty young, so hopefully we can play together for another four or five years which by then you really get that synergy and know how each other plays.
“Having less rotations means more blokes will be going through the midfield and more blokes resting forward so we’ll really need that depth coming from the young boys.”
