Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield has responded to Kane Cornes’ assertation that he needs to drop some weight in order to increase his longevity in the game.
The 2016 Brownlow Medallist has dealt with ongoing calf and leg injuries across the last two seasons and once again finds himself needing some time away to recondition his body.
“There is some relevance to it absolutely,” Dangerfield told SEN’s Whateley.
“But not at the cost of the way that you play and that explosive element of it.
“If you’re talking purely from a weight sense, mine hasn’t really changed for five or six years. It’s always been pretty much the same.
“Could you change it? You could. Would it impact the way that you’re able to explode, potentially, and that’s sort of the risk versus reward and do you change your game as you get older to adapt to your changing body? Those are the discussions you get to and I’m assuming I’ll get to at the end of the year.
“Your career sort of ticks to a slightly different career to what it once was, but it’s not something I’ve put a huge amount of thought into right at this minute because with what benefits the team and how you play and fit within that, for me it’s being as explosive as humanly possible.”
Dangerfield admits that the burst from stoppages that he has built his career on does put a toll on his legs.
“There’s no doubt (the explosiveness) is costly because that’s the mechanism. You put so much force through your legs and specifically through your calves, that’s the area that gives way, but that’s my game,” he said.
“It’s reconditioning to an extent and really loading that muscle back up and building the scar tissue around it because I don’t know any other way. I don’t think I could play the game in any other way. Intrinsically that’s just your reaction and you go full tilt.
“That’s the reason I’ve played the way that I have for as long as I have. I don’t think you can go away from each individual player’s DNA and certainly not in that respect.”
Dangerfield will be sidelined for “the coming weeks”, according to Cats, as they look to build him up for the back-half of the year.