Melbourne star Clayton Oliver has suffered another setback in his recovery from a hamstring injury and will miss up to another month of footy.
Oliver has not played since round 10 and was spotted having a heated exchange with Melbourne’s head of strength and conditioning, Selwyn Griffith, during training on Wednesday.
Barely 24 hours after vision of the fiery clash surfaced, Melbourne confirmed the three-time All-Australian midfielder would miss even more time.
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“Clayton has a complex hamstring injury, due to the fact that the injury is located where the muscle attaches to the tendon, and to further complicate that, there is injury to two separate hamstring muscles,” Melbourne’s football boss Alan Richardson said on Thursday.
“There is no doubt that Clayton’s recovery has been complicated by the week he was required to spend immobile in hospital.
“What we have experienced so far is that Clayton can comfortably achieve 90 per cent of his running capacity, but as we saw yesterday, he is unable to get to full speed to pass his minimum training markers.
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“This suggests that, due to the discomfort Clayton felt during his run throughs, further recovery time is required. At this stage, we expect this will be three to four weeks.
“The club will continue to explore all treatment options for Clayton, but as with all players, we won’t be taking any risks with his return to play timelines.”
Vision of Oliver’s clash with Griffith spread like wildfire on Wednesday evening, but the impact of the clash was downplayed by Geelong great Jimmy Bartel, who said such conversations were commonplace within football clubs.
“I don’t see an issue with this at all,” he told Nine’s Footy Classified.
“What workplace doesn’t have a little bit of conflict? Football clubs are full of conflict and that’s what drives elite sport and elite athletes.
“That’s the most open environment to film a training session. That would be going on at every single football club regarding players coming back from injury.
“I just don’t see the big deal in a strength and conditioning guy and a player who’s incredibly driven to get back and play (who) we know is a competitive beast having a bit of conflict. He’s just frustrated.”
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