Adelaide forward Josh Rachele suffered a serious-looking knee injury in last week’s loss to Melbourne at Adelaide Oval. He landed unluckily after a marking contest. This forced his left knee to bend in a scary-looking way. Rachele immediately grabbed his knee and was later subbed out of the match, replaced by fellow Crow Lachie Murphy.
Witnesses said that the moment was hard to watch, his knee seemingly crushing itself under the weight of Rachele. The injury threw the crowd at Adelaide Oval into instant shock. Fans and teammates that night—and ever since—have all dreaded the worst. Those early assessments sounded an alarm. They told her he’d likely torn or ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, a common but horrific injury for an athlete. In a more positive story that followed soon after, there were indications that McCarthy’s injury was less serious than originally reported.
Commentator and former AFL player Nick Riewoldt pointed out the parallels between Rachele’s injury and Sam Darcy’s earlier this season. Both injuries at the time caused a huge total uproar across all fans and analysts. On the human side of things, he commented on the fear players have to live with after sustaining injuries of this nature.
“Similar mechanism to the Sam Darcy mechanism earlier in the year where everyone held their breath, and even the initial reports were pretty ordinary, but it ended up not being the worst-case scenario with the knee,” – Nick Riewoldt
Following the game, Erin Phillips, one of the club’s spokespeople, gave an update on Rachele’s injury status. She said that he would have additional tests to assess the level of damage.
“Speaking to the club, he’ll get further assessment, so hopefully nothing too serious, but he will obviously not return to the game,” – Erin Phillips
Riewoldt opened up about his past experiences dealing with similar injuries. He shared his desire that Rachele’s situation would turn out to be not as serious as suspected.
“I had one pretty similar, and hadn’t really had a mechanism like that. And so, as a player, the fear always goes to, ‘What’s worst-case scenario?’ You see the hyper-extend there; the hope would be that it’s capsule and not the ACL. So, hopefully it’s just a stretch of the capsule,” – Nick Riewoldt
Meanwhile, Rachele’s Adelaide Crows are most likely wishing for good news. They’re just trying to get a sense of how his injury will impact their season. Peters mentioned that the team has dealt with a rollercoaster of injuries this year. With a player of Rachele’s caliber, losing her would be catastrophic to their chances.
