Since the late-January long weekend break, the AFL industry has been ravaged with injury.
And it's not just your day-to-day injury hiccups, or freak fractures and breaks.
As AFL clubs geared up with full-contact, full-pelt match simulation in the first month of the calendar year, tweet after tweet and report after report emerged with more hamstrung, bone-stressed athletes set to miss multiple months of action.
From last week alone, North Melbourne's George Wardlaw, Essendon's Jordan Ridley, Richmond's Josh Smillie, Melbourne's Jake Melksham and Western Bulldogs' Jason Johannisen suffered hamstring injuries, the majority of which will miss their first match of the season.
Another prone player to soft tissue injuries, Eagle Elliot Yeo, is in a race to play Round 1 after recording MCL damage during match simulation.
Then there's the matter of bone stress, highlighting that players are clearly overdoing their workload at this time of year.
Melbourne's Koltyn Tholstrup, St Kilda's Mattaes Phillipou and Rowan Marshall, Collingwood's Tom Mitchell, Hawthorn's Calsher Dear, and Sydney's Jesse Dattoli are just some names that have been sidelined this pre-season with stress fractures or early signs of bone stress.
The former two are youngsters who found out the frustrating setback just this week and will miss up to three months of action.
The league has hardly seen anything like it. Except that it happened last year.
In 2024, the injury crisis reached its peak mid-season, with a whopping tally of 150 injured footballers sitting on the sidelines in Round 10.
Richmond suffered the most damage, with five ACL ruptures to notable players on their list, resulting in the wooden spooners utilising 42 out of 44 players on their list.
Even the eventual premiers Brisbane had a multitude of key Lions fall victim to long-term injuries.
The AFL Players Association (AFLPA) even called for radical changes of shortened quarters and an additional bye round to aid players' physical welfare in the future.
Truth is, the AFL doesn't need a drastic change to its game to prevent injuries. Simply look at the last few pre-seasons alone and there is a discernible difference that has evidently produced an uptick in hurt players.
Intriguingly, the two years clubs have wrestled with staggering piles of injuries has been the two years the AFL season is starting earlier than ever, and hence, lasting longer than ever.
Enter Opening Round. Lauded by executives, polarising for fans, the contentious four-match round to start the 2024 and 2025 seasons has brought the AFL season as far forward as it has ever been.
While the season still finishes at the same time of year, either on the final Saturday of September or the first Saturday of October, the AFL has been gradually creeping into the summer timeslot, with 2025's home and away season set to begin not even a week after autumn begins.
A look back over recent years highlights AFL clubs are losing time each pre-season to prepare their players.
In 2024 and 2025, the season starts at the close of the first week of March. In 2023, the season started mid-March on the 16th, as did 2022, while 2021 began on the 18th.
Head back further to 2018, the season now begins in the third week of March, on the 21st. In just seven seasons, clubs have lost two weeks to condition their players appropriately for the hard-hitting six-month season.
One final look, a decade ago. The season started in April. The fourth month of the calendar year, well and truly into autumn, and hardly interfering with the traditional pre-season summer.
In the span of ten years, players have lost an entire month of pre-season preparation. Football matches, albeit practice games, are now being played in the scorching February heat.
The sudden condensation has not treated footballers well.
Former premiership Power player Kane Cornes spoke on SEN, detailing how pre-seasons are shortening by the year, with high performance staff struggling to create an adequate program that safely increases the players' loads ahead of the ruthless football season.
"I've used North Melbourne as the example as they didn't play finals,โ Cornes said.
โTheir last game was on August 24, they returned to pre-season training for five-plus year players on November 25. That's 12 weeks of holiday in the off-season.
"They then trained for three weeks before Christmas, they broke up on December 19 - so they've had three weeks training.
"They then returned post-Christmas on January 9 - so there's another three weeks holiday.
"Their first pre-season game is on February 22, so they (high performance staff) have five and a half weeks of training from January 9 to February 22 to prepare the players after Christmas.
"That is eight and a half weeks for the year to get ready for the most difficult sport to play in the world, the most physically demanding.
"Eight and a half weeks is not enough, so it's no wonder the high performance staff you're speaking to, the coaches that we're speaking toโฆ say, โWe just don't have enough time with the players'.
"...If you're wondering why everyone is getting injured and why it's never been worse, this is why."
The AFL's overt eagerness to expand the game beyond its traditional six-month timeslot, for perhaps revenue reasons or purely to ensure the game stays in the minds of fans year-round, has negatively impacted the players.
As the AFL enters its second season verging on a seven-month fixture, the injury pile-up is telling. Should the AFL continue to increase the demand on players earlier in the pre-season, changes must be asked for to ensure the physical welfare of players remains paramount.
While drastic measures of shortened quarters are unfavourable and frowned upon by the common fan, increased list sizes or a reduced break between each club's final match and the beginning of pre-season could aid the injury crisis clubs currently face.
But for right now, the AFL will have to deal with a second season of carnage at club land, and the backlash because of it.
