By ROY WARD
EVERYONE at the ground heard the sickening crack except the player whose leg had just snapped.
During the Eastern Football League’s showpiece Queen’s Birthday game between Noble Park and Balwyn at Balwyn Park last year, first-year Noble Park recruit Brad Scalzo attempted to fend off a tackle and came out with a broken leg.
At first, the 25-year-old rover thought it was a corked calf but one glance at his leg told him the injury was far worse.
“I remember pretty much everything from that day,” he said. “I got tackled. I thought it was a corky but as I got up I thought ‘this is really sore’.’’
“Then I could feel my bones touching. I looked down and saw my leg at a funny angle and thought ‘oh, no’ and just fell back down.
“I went straight into shock and didn’t feel a thing until they tried to move me. Everyone said they heard that crack but I didn’t hear a thing.”
While the game was paused to allow Scalzo to be carefully carried off, the Bulls players came together and pledged to pull out all stops to beat their rivals and win it for ‘Scalls’.
A few players even ran past and touched him on the head as he was carried off, with the Bulls going on to win the match, an achievement which left the hospitalised rover feeling pretty touched.
“I was getting updates all the time on my phone and I felt a bit emotional that they won it for me,” he said.
“We had a lot of guys out with injuries at that time and we might have only had one player left on the bench.
“I was a bit under the pain drugs at that point but I was still really stoked. I just wished I was a part of it.”
What came next for the former Narre Warren star was a horrific period of surgery, recovery and a six-month stint out of work as he couldn’t keep up his duties as a carpenter.
“I’m up and down ladders all the time in my job so I was off for six months, just sitting at home,” he said.
Scalzo’s private insurance covered the majority of his surgery and physio costs but with the club and league having, in Scalzo’s words “pretty crap insurance”, he was left to survive on Centrelink payments of $500 per fortnight and his own savings during his recovery.
“It was hell,” he said. One saving grace for Scalzo was that the Bulls did everything they could to help him through his hard times, running a fund-raiser for him and several raffles to help with his recovery.
“The club helped me as much as they could,” he said. “They had all these raffles and probably raised about $3000 for me which helped heaps.
“They didn’t wipe their hands of me even though I was only in my first year at the club.”
He said that while in hospital his teammates were daily visitors, with 10-15 coming each day to keep his spirits up.
Scalzo’s story is one of many which led to the EFL and its clubs revamping their insurance for this coming season, offering much greater protection for their semi-professional players, most of whom have work or study outside their football commitments.
“We pay about $40 a season and get much better coverage; it’s a shame we didn’t have it last year,” Scalzo said.
Just before Christmas, Scalzo got to come back to training with the Bulls. At first he could only do the warm-ups and some light running but gradually he has graduated to doing full running and all the skills work.
He has an appointment with his surgeon the week before the EFL season starts and he hopes to get the all clear to return to “full contact” training and soon after, get back to playing.
“It’s getting there slowly and I have no pain,” he said. “As soon as the surgeon gives me the all clear I’ll be back to it and he reckons it will never break again, at least in the spot I broke it, because of all calluses where it has healed.”
Scalzo optimistically wants to play in round one but has already been told by his physio to look a little further along the fixture.
“The physio said I’m no chance at round one but I hope it will be soon after,” Scalzo said. “I’m kicking the ball and everything like that, the only problem I have is making sharp turns because I get a pain above my knee, but it’s just a ligament which has become a bit weak so I’m strengthening it with each session.”
After giving the Bulls a brief glimpse of his best form in the weeks before his injury last season, Scalzo wants to repay the club’s support with interest once he gets back on the field.
“I want to make an impact and play the style of footy I was playing before the injury,” he said.
“I had just come back from playing three years in Queensland on big grounds so I had only started to get used to the smaller grounds and more contested play of the EFL.
“I really just want to have an injury-free season and have no complications — I think that is a pretty good goal to aim for.”
The EFL season begins on April 12.
For all the latest breaking news, stay with this website. Also, follow the Weekly at facebook.com/dandenongjournal or on Twitter @DandyJournal.
