Essendon fitness coach John Quinn was not at the VFL practice match last Friday when Dean Solomon injured his knee. But he only needed one look at the video Quinn for him to realise the structural damage that had been done. ""You could tell immediately what he had done - the way the leg buckled underneath. There is a test the physios and doctors can do straight away to confirm the injury. They did this immediately and it verified their fears. He was taken to Olympic Park Sports Medicine and the surgeon we use - Julian Feller (the surgeon that operated on James Hird's foot), looked at the knee and confirmed the diagnosis,"" a disappointed Quinn said.

Solomon is scheduled to have surgery next Wednesday. He is currently in the hands of the Essendon physiotherapists who are working at reducing the swelling and increasing the movement of the knee joint. If there is a positive to be taken out of the injury it is that Solomon only injured the anterior cruciate ligament. ""Quite often when you get an injury like that you get structural damage around it – maybe a patella tendon - and that can set the player up for problems in the future. You hear people say an anterior cruciate is a career ending injury - that is because it can disrupt so many structures in the knee. But with Solomon's injury it is clearly just the anterior cruciate. So with the operation he should come through it very successfully and resume playing as we know he can.""

Solomon has got a great deal of work ahead of him to get the knee right so he can resume playing next year. Quinn is aiming at getting him ready for the start of the 2003 pre-season. ""One of the biggest challenges for Solly is minimising the shrinkage of the muscle - making sure he maintains as much strength to the hamstring and quadriceps as he can and gradually starting running and getting back to a full range of movement and then agility work.""

After the operation, Solomon will be in the hands of the physios again and they will work on further improving the range of motion in the knee joint. After this stage, the fitness team will start him doing some cardio-vascular work and also strength and upper body work. After this, Solomon will start weight bearing activities - jogging and then running - and finally move to agility and football skills. ""That all sounds pretty quick but you are talking about a 12-month program. Having an injury is the hardest time of all - it is probably another month away until Solly feels the true devastation and isolation of his knee injury. It will be a true test of his character - mental and physical. The players are used to missing two, three maybe four games but they are not used to missing 22-games plus finals - that is the end of it for this year,"" said Quinn.