Anthony Morabito says his comeback from LARS surgery on his left knee is on schedule and he hopes to be playing football somewhere around the midway point of the AFL season.
The 22-year-old midfielder has not appeared in an AFL fixture since he played 23 games in his debut 2010 season.
He underwent a traditional hamstring graft reconstruction after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee in December of 2010.
Morabito appeared to be on the cusp of an AFL return in mid-2012, but he re-injured the same ACL in July that year.
After a second conventional reconstruction and subsequent rehabilitation period, the Harvey product was left devastated when the knee gave way again during a training drill on 8 January this year.
After weighing up all his options, Morabito elected to undergo a Ligament Augmentation and Reconstruction System procedure, better known as LARS, which has seen many high profile athletes makes relatively quick returns from serious injuries such as ACLs.
LARS consists of industrial strength polyester fibres that are made to mimic the natural anatomical structure.
Since the procedure back in January, Morabito has been doing strength and balance work on the knee and, for the past two weeks, has been using the club’s high-tech Ultra-G machine, which can alter body weight to allow athletes to run at, theoretically, 75 per cent of their actual weight to take pressure of their injury.
He ran 3km on Fremantle Oval on Monday and said he was on track to return to full training in late April.
“After a traditional reconstruction you would be doing this three months down the track,” Morabito said.
“It’s quite heartening to know the stuff you can get done early with LARS.”
Morabito said he would only return once he and the club’s medical staff were 100 per cent confident he was right to go.
“The difference between round 8, and round 10, 11 or 12 is not much, so there is going to be no rush to get me straight back out there until I’m ready,” he said.
Morabito did not undergo the conventional LARS artificial ligament procedure, instead choosing to have a hybrid graft, which is a combination of LARS and a hamstring tendon.
The main aim of the hybrid graft is to have the early return to function that the LARS provides, but also the longevity the hamstring tendon graft can offer.
The recovery period from a hybrid graft is slightly longer than that of an artificial ligament procedure.
“I thought it was going to be pretty similar to a traditional knee recon, but once I hit week three and started doing work outside and in the gym and started building strength back up, it all went forwards really quickly and I was able to start jogging,” Morabito said.
“You wouldn’t dream of it if you went the other way.”
Morabito injured his knee during a training session after the Christmas and New Year break. The session before his injury, he had run a personal best 3km time trial time.
Towards the end of an advanced drill, he attempted to tackle teammate Tanner Smith, but he ended up in agony on the ground, clutching his left knee.
“I knew I’d done the ACL straight away,” he said.
“The only disappointment I had was that I’d knew I’d put in so much effort to come back.
“I’d ticked all the boxes, and the shock to know I’d have to go back and start again after I’d invested so much time and mental effort became quite daunting.”
Morabito’s initial thoughts were to have a conventional knee reconstruction again.
It wasn’t until a few days later that he began to explore the possibility of a different path.
“I had an in-depth discussion with Nick Malceski about the procedure that he had done and his thoughts on the LARS concept,” Morabito said.
“Once I spoke to him, it became a realistic possibility.”
Sydney Swan Malceski brought the LARS procedure to prominence when he underwent the surgery on his right knee in 2008 and again in 2011. He also had a conventional knee reconstruction on his left knee in 2004.
He has now played 126 AFL games, including the 2012 AFL Grand Final, in which he kicked the winning goal.
“We got into contact with Malceski’s surgeon (Dr Danny Biggs) and he advised us of our options,” Morabito said.
“We came to the decision that the surgery of the hamstring tendon with the LARS together would give me the best chance of playing footy, not only this year, but with the strength that I need to potentially play as much footy as I can.”
Morabito has already discovered the early pros of the LARS procedure.
Because he’s been able to resume working out so soon, he hasn’t lost as much strength in his leg as he would have if he’d had a traditional recon.
“What usually would take you a month to strengthen has only taken a week, and you’re able to progress a lot quicker than you’d like because the LARS ligament is holding up that knee as strong as it’s going to be from day one,” he said.
“As long as I progress one or two per cent daily, playing again is not going to be something that’s so far down the track, that it’s quite mentally hard to picture.
“For me, now, it’s conceivable that I could potentially be back playing this season.”
While Morabito had a number of choices to make after he injured the knee again, retiring was not one of them.
He said, after already having gone through a couple of reconstructions, giving up would have just made all the hard work he’d done to get back worthless.
“It’s quite disheartening to know all the hard work has been undone by a ligament in your body, especially when you know that you can match it with anyone out there,” he said.
“But as footballers, we’re programmed to think, ‘what’s next?’.
“After I got over that initial disappointment, I was all systems go.
“I knew that once I’d made the decision to go with the LARS, that was it. I got in the gym before my operation to make sure I didn’t lose much and make sure I kept in shape.
“It’s held me in good stead at this stage of my rehab.”
Morabito’s outlook now is completely positive.
He has full faith in the club’s fitness staff and physios to guide him back out onto the football field.
“Let’s just hope that in the second half of the year, I’m able to get back out there and produce some football that I know I can,” Morabito said.
“The possibility of playing football this year seemed non-existent six weeks ago and now it’s a very real possibility.
“I’m just excited and really humbled that I might be able to do it.”
