Injured St Kilda defender Matt Maguire reaches for his crutches at his press conference yesterday where he announced that a foot injury will keep him out for the rest of 2008.
Photo: Sebastian Costanzo

Saint makes no bones about his desire to return to the playing field

Nick Sheridan | May 13, 2008

THERE was a touch of the podiatrist about Matt Maguire yesterday as the St Kilda defender explained the break in his left foot that has ended his 2008 season.

Amid the talk of navicular bones, bone spurs and metatarsals, the young man who fronted the media at Moorabbin yesterday sounded more like a foot doctor than a 23-year-old footballer.

Maguire has had to listen to a lot of talk about that left foot in the past two years as he overcame stress fractures to the navicular bone sustained in the opening game of last season and now faces a long comeback from a fracture to the fourth metatarsal of that same foot.

Maguire said he first became aware of the injury when he felt "significant pain" in his left foot during the third quarter of the Saints' round-seven victory over Richmond. "I know my body pretty well and I could actually feel something, as I was walking, I could feel something just clicking in my foot. I knew something was wrong," he said yesterday.

Doctors at the Epworth hospital found the fracture and the young Saint was operated on last Wednesday.

Maguire has come to terms with not playing again this season and is focused on getting through his rehabilitation so that he is ready for the 2009 season. "At this stage the next goal is walking — I'm on crutches at the moment — and then, after that, get back to jogging and then running and a full pre-season would be nice, and a full 22 games and finals next year would probably be the ideal," he said.

Maguire has had a horrific injury run since round 18, 2006, when he broke his left leg in a clash with Eagle Tyson Stenglein. He has played just 14 games since and is one short of his 100th.

But the injuries haven't shaken his self-belief. "That's why I keep persisting and keep giving myself an opportunity," he said. "If I didn't think I was going to be able to get back there I wouldn't train up and do all the hard work — if I thought there was no chance then I'd just give it away because what's the use of doing all that hard work just to come back and play one or two games?"