By Colin MacGillivray
FOR Whittlesea, Saturday’s Northern Football Netball League division one match against Bundoora delivered a reminder that some things are bigger than football.
The Eagles trailed last season’s runners-up 2.7 (19) to 12.8 (80) late in the third quarter at Yulong Reserve when promising young midfielder Luke Jeffs was dealt a sickening injury.
Jeffs dislocated and broke an ankle, and had to wait on the ground for more than 40 minutes until an ambulance arrived.
Whittlesea senior coach Wayne Van Der Ross said both clubs agreed to call the game off after the incident.
“We spoke to the umpires, I spoke to my players and then we spoke to Bundoora’s coach ‘Chopper’ [Michael Ryan],” he said.
“I said look, we’ve been on the field for 50 minutes, we’re all cold now. We thought the best thing was to stop and not risk any more injuries. He was happy to call it, so we called it there.”
Van Der Ross spoke to Jeffs on Saturday night and said the midfielder was staying positive.
“He was going to have surgery on the broken ankle to re-set it, but he might need more surgery after that because there might be a few other things broken and ligaments to think about,” Van Der Ross said.
“He was in good spirits and his parents were there with him.
“We wish him all the best in his recovery because he’s a very good kid. He’s a senior player who is going to have a very big future for the Whittlesea footy club.”
Van Der Ross praised the exemplary behaviour of Bundoora Football Netball Club, whose trainers came to Jeffs’ assistance alongside those of Whittlesea.
“Bundoora were fantastic. Their president and operations manager came over and said if we needed anything they were there to help,” he said.
“I want to say a big thank you to Bundoora and their senior coach ‘Chopper’.
“They were fantastic in their understanding of the situation. They helped out a lot and they’ve even texted us a couple of days later to check in with Luke. They’re a first-class football club.”
Prior to Jeffs’ injury, Van Der Ross admitted his charges had been ‘disappointing’ after showing encouraging signs in their first two games.
“You look at the results of the first two weeks and from the outside people might say we’ve been smashed by 10 goals, but in the first game against Montmorency we were up at quarter time, level at half time and we were pushing them midway through the third quarter before they kicked a few goals,” he said.
“Last week against Heidelberg we had some good patches even though the result didn’t show that. In the third quarter we kicked six goals to three, so there were a lot of positives to take from the first two weeks even though we didn’t get the results.
“On the weekend we were very disappointing. I think we were flat and didn’t come out of the blocks well.
“To Bundoora’s credit, they took their opportunities well and we didn’t. We missed some early goals that we probably should have kicked, and a good side as Bundoora are, they punished us.”
Vice-captain Deakin Tenant was a standout for the Eagles, providing leadership and clean ball use off the half-back line, while Christian Prestopino and Clancy Bland were the team’s sole goal kickers.
Whittlesea will return home this weekend for a meeting with Hurstbridge – a match Van Der Ross said his side was eagerly anticipating.
In division three, Kilmore will return from a bye to host Reservoir at JJ Clancy Reserve.
