KEY defender Tom McDonald will miss the start of the pre-season, due to shoulder surgery.
McDonald will be on the sidelines for up to three months before he’s back into full contact football.
“It’s a different version of a shoulder reconstruction, so it’s a bit quicker rehab and, in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be lying down and not doing too much with it,” McDonald told melbournefc.com.au.
“Then I’ll start moving, because I’ll have to do some work on the bike and some leg weights, where I’m not using the shoulder.
“In six weeks, I’ll start jogging and running around. Once you get to the two or three month part, I’ll be back into footy skills and back into full weights. There are lots of physio exercises to build back up along the way.
“It’s three months until I’m back into full footy, so I won’t miss much of the pre-season at all.”
McDonald was set to have the surgery done mid last week, but had to wait until after last Thursday night’s club best and fairest dinner.
“I was due to go into surgery last week, and I had a bit of a stuff-up. I got to the ward at 6.30 am on Wednesday and sat around for six hours and the surgeon came in and said ‘sorry Tommy, we can’t get it done today, we’ve had a few others go over time, so can you come back Friday?’,” he said.
“So we started off on a bad foot, but they had a couple of other surgeries that took a lot longer than expected.
“It wasn’t a good start on Wednesday, but I came back on Friday and went in with big Jake Spencer and had surgery. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital and had bandages all over my shoulder.
“It’s a new experience – I’ve never had surgery before, so it was interesting, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”
McDonald missed rounds seven to 10 this year, after injuring his shoulder at training. But he was optimistic the surgery he has now had will secure his long-term future in the game.
“I hurt it at training in a tackle during the season. It’s not a clean up or a full reconstruction, but a stabilisation procedure,” he said.
“It helps me stop it from reinjuring it again. It probably wasn’t necessary, in terms of I wasn’t having any pain, but being a young player, it prevents it from being an issue a couple of years down the track.
“If I was at the end of my career, I’d probably keep going and play through it, but I’m hoping to have 10 more years, so hopefully I’ll have no more issues with it.”
McDonald said he wanted to get the surgery done quickly after the season, so he could enjoy the rest of his time off.
“For the next three weeks, I’ll be in Melbourne and home to see family,” he said.
“After that, in October I’m going to Europe for a little while, and hopefully if everything goes well, I can do a little bit of running over there.
“It probably doesn’t affect anything too much, except the first couple of weeks when I can’t really do much at all. That’s why I got it done as soon as I could, so I could go on my overseas trip and be right for pre-season and start running straight away. It shouldn’t affect too much, but it’s a bit annoying for the first couple of weeks and I’ll have to lie in bed for a while.”
