Speaking to essendonfc.com.au Reid said that Patrick Ryder (shoulder), Jobe Watson (shoulder), Jason Laycock (ankle), Scott Lucas (knee) and Adam McPhee (ankle) were the most recent players to go under the knife. All five underwent surgery last week in a bid to be fit in time for the start of pre-season in November.
"Because we had a lot of them done early, virtually all of our players will be in full training by November,” Reid said.
"Jason Winderlich, who underwent delicate back surgery eight weeks ago, will be one exception and will be placed on a restricted training regime. The players who underwent shoulder operations also won’t be doing contact drills when the side returns for pre-season."
Ryder, 20, had reconstructive surgery on a shoulder injury that he has carried for a large part of the 2008 season while Watson had shoulder stabilisation surgery having partially dislocated his shoulder twice during the season.
"Patrick has had a torn tendon inside his shoulder joint which made it difficult for him in the ruck when his arm was forced back… He had a shoulder reconstruction to stabilise the tendon."
However Adam McPhee’s surgery to tidy up spurs in his ankle joint isn’t the last hospital procedure he’ll have in the off season. He’ll also have surgery on his thumb in the coming weeks to repair torn tendons.
Jason Laycock had a screw inserted in his ankle while Scott Lucas had an arthroscope to remove rough cartilage from under his kneecap.
Two weeks ago, David Hille had screws inserted into his metacarpal after breaking his hand in Essendon’s Round 20 clash with Adelaide.
