Koschitzke out for two

[stan]

Wed 26 April, 2006
Matt Burgan
Exclusive to afl.com.au

The Saints have officially ruled a line through Justin Koschitzke's name for Sunday's match against Fremantle in Launceston.

Koschitzke had been rated an outside chance to recover from tightness in a right quad muscle sustained during Monday night's encounter against Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium.

But in its official injury list released on Wednesday afternoon, the club has Koschitzke penciled-in for two weeks on the sidelines.

St Kilda training services manager Craig Starcevich said there were "a million and one different hypotheses" as to why he's managed to "tighten up and slightly strain" his quad.

"We're trying to come up with different reasons why, but he's done a whole heap of work and the main thing that left him vulnerable was that fact that it's early days in his match preparation, so he hasn't had the luxury of being eased back into practice games and intra-club games," Starcevich told saints.com.au.

"We've been very conservative when we've brought him back into play too."

"The whole mechanism of how it happened is quite unusual for a quad, so he's got some quad soreness and some muscle disruption in his quad that's going to take, we hope, somewhere between the two-week mark to repair.

"On that leg, he's had a few bits and pieces over the last couple of years with his patella tendonitis and also he tore that quad last year in a different position, so it's probably all conspired to make that leg slightly more vulnerable.

"He's hurt his leg in a very unusual way, which was landing in a middle of an aerial contest and you'd expect that if you landed in an aerial contest, the first thing you'd hurt is an ankle or knee, but he's managed to hurt his quad, as his whole leg has braced for the landing."

The ruckman-forward had a delayed start to the new season, playing his first match against Port on Monday after suffering from patella tendonitis during the pre-season.

Koschitzke was only able to manage 11 appearances for the Saints in 2005 due to a succession of soft tissue injuries including quad and hamstring strains.

Meanwhile, Starcevich said full-forward Fraser Gehrig was not without a chance of playing against Fremantle.

"He actually ran flat out today (Wednesday). The actual senior team didn't train today, because it was only two days off the game, but he did his rehab and ran flat out," Starcevich said.

"So if he does full training on Friday in preparation for Sunday, then there's probably not a lot of reason to leave him out.

"He'd be a pretty good chance."

Veteran Justin Peckett will also be available after recovering from a hip flexor problem.

[Rik E Boy]

Bowen Lockwood board.

regards,

REB