Commentators, the crowd and Gold Coast medical staff feared the worst the moment Seb Tape crashed to the turf during the GC SUNS clash with North Melbourne at Metricon Stadium.
“I just went down and my leg was planted out in front so it was vulnerable and yeah he just jumped across my leg and straight away it sort of crunched.”
It was a sickening replay played over and over on the stadium video board at a time when Seb himself was trying to come to grips with what had just happened.
“I thought I had done a similar thing to what Gary Rohan (Sydney Swans) had done, I thought I had broken my fibular, but it sort of became more evident that it was my knee as I was coming off.”
Post match, his leg immobilised, Seb cut a lonely figure as he hobbled out of the GC SUNS dressing rooms on crutches, the 2012 season over from a playing point of view.
They couldn’t give me an exact answer on what I had done, but I sort of assumed the worst and I sort of prepared for an ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament).
As Senior Coach Guy McKenna addressed the media after a heart breaking seven point loss against the Kangaroos, he was also coming to terms with adding another player to a growing long term injury list.
Sebby’s looks bad, bit too early to asses that at the moment but yeah it looks bad. We will have fingers and arms and legs and everything else crossed for him.
While there is never a good time for an injury, the timing of Seb’s setback was particularly cruel given that he had overcome losing three teeth during the Club’s round one clash against the Adelaide Crows and had been one of the GC SUNS most consistent on field performers.
“I was feeling a little bit more comfortable in the backline but I was looking forward to the back end of the year hoping to try and string some games together and see what we could do.”
“Especially as well with the Club not having a win, these are the times you want to be out there playing with your team mates and getting out of this together.”
Seb flew to Melbourne where he met with internationally recognised Melbourne orthopaedic surgeon Julian Feller who confirmed the GC SUNS medical teams fears.
Julian Feller is an internationally recognised Melbourne orthopaedic surgeon whose main area of interest is knee surgery. His expertise covers the whole range of knee conditions from sports injuries to knee replacement.
Although Julian has worked with elite athletes in a wide range of sports and has an affiliation with a number of AFL clubs, he is just at home helping the "weekend warrior", recreational sportsperson, or someone struggling with an arthritic knee.
Not only had he ruptured his ACL, however there had also been a rupture of the medial ligament, while the lateral meniscus had also suffered a significant tear.
Structurally the news was much better with Feller confident the talented Tape would make a full recovery post operation.
Whilst he prepared for surgery and the prospect of a lengthy period in rehabilitation, Seb drew inspiration from GC SUNS assistant coach Dean Solomon.
I have done a lot of soul searching and sort of looking to people who have been through it and I have grown a lot of inspiration out of Dean Solomon who has been a great mentor to me and he did his when he was twenty two and he was very positive for me.
The surgery proved successful with Dr Feller removing a piece of tendon to create a new anterior cruciate ligament stabilising Seb’s right knee and allowing him to commence the recovery and rehabilitation process.
“I’ll be able to go back to Arizona and get some of the benefits out of that and yeah hopefully, in my head I am trying to prepare for round one next year.”
Seb is spending some time with his family in South Australia before returning to the Gold Coast.
