Adelaide Crows defender Tom Doedee has revealed he’s drawing on his older brother for inspiration in the wake of his season-ending ACL injury.
Tom’s older brother Harley lost the bottom of both his legs in a devastating car accident when he was just 17. Tom said that family trauma is now providing him with some much-needed perspective.
“He’s a double leg amputee. The biggest thing is to surround yourself with good people and you’ll get through things,” Tom told 9News Adelaide.
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“He had an unbelievable community around him in terms of his friends and family that looked after him, and we saw the power of that.”
Doedee reached out to his brother on Monday evening, after scans on Sunday confirmed he’d suffered the second serious knee injury of his career.
“I was just talking to him … in the end I’m going to be able to walk into surgery, I’ll be able to walk out of surgery, he’s in the wheelchair for the rest of his life,” he said.
Initial tests during the Crows’ clash with Gold Coast in Darwin on Saturday night had given Doedee a glimmer of hope he may have avoided the worst-case scenario.
But as the night went on, the Victorian began to notice a similar sensation in his right knee, to when he ruptured his ACL in his left leg in 2019.
The realisation of what he was about to face once again, led to an outpouring of emotion.
“Probably about 3:30 in the morning, it all hit me. I started to get a bit angry, punching the pillow and stuff because in my mind I sort of knew. That’s when I realised what it was,” he said.
The 26-year-old says the prospect of another year of rehabilitation is even more daunting now than it was four years ago.
“The fact you know what’s coming makes it worse,” Doedee revealed.
“It’s not an easy 12 months and you try to stay positive. You want to be upbeat, but in the end it’s 12 months of missing the sport you love to play.”
A restricted free agent at the end of this season, Doedee’s injury could also have major implications for his football and financial future.
The intercept specialist had been putting contract talks on hold until later this year as he weighed up his next move.
Heading into arguably the most important contract of his career, Doedee was in line for a long-term, big-money deal, regardless of whether he remained in Adelaide or returned home to a rival club in Victoria.
“It’s not the way I wanted it to go and it hurts but it hasn’t played on my mind as much as people would think,” he said.
“Obviously there’s been talk after it happened, ‘He’s in a contract year. It’s going to hurt his value’, all that sort of stuff, but it’s actually probably been third or fourth on my priority list.”
Doedee and partner Emily flew to the Gold Coast on Tuesday morning to spend time with family and friends.
He’ll return to Adelaide later this week before undergoing a knee reconstruction, with his playing future to be addressed following the operation.
“We’ll cross that bridge probably a week or two post surgery when I’m off all the drugs and starting to feel normal again,” he said.
“In terms of how it affects that stuff going forward, I don’t know at the moment.”
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