Essendon has suffered its first serious injury set-back of the year with Leroy Jetta to undergo surgery tomorrow after dislocating his thumb during a practice match against Richmond’s second-18 side at Craigieburn on Friday.

General manager of football operations, Paul Hamilton, said the 21-year-old will be sidelined for up to six weeks, during which he will still be able to maintain his fitness base.
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“It is disappointing for Leroy because he has had his best ever pre-season and unfortunately it is going to keep him out for a number of weeks,” Hamilton said.

“He will be able to keep his fitness up, which you can’t do with a leg injury, so we are lucky from that perspective. Obviously there is a period following the operation where you can’t do much because you can’t allow for the extra bleeding and things but, once it has settled down, he can join in and run around and build it up from there.

“It is most disappointing from the perspective that he is a player that knows this is an important year for him and he wanted to get off to a good start and unfortunately it hasn’t happened for him.”

Travis Colyer, 18, also required hand surgery last fortnight to repair the webbing on his hand which split during a marking drill at training but he is likely to resume full training in a week’s time.

“Travis is recovering well, he is out running now so he is able to do that side of things,” Hamilton said.

“He has still got a way to go but his spirits are good and that is generally half the battle.”

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Overall, Hamilton said he was pleased with the state of the club’s injury list – particularly considering almost the entire list participated in a match on either Friday or Saturday last week.

“This year there has been an element of luck but we have also been very well-planned and I have to say that our high performance staff and our medical group in conjunction to our coaching staff have been working so well together and the result of that is you see a lot less soft-tissue injuries,” he said.

“There has been really good planning put in place - the guys are a lot fitter than they were and that helps. They have got themselves in better condition and that helps from an injury point of view but there is always an element of luck.”
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