Being a professional athlete can be a rollercoaster ride. Enjoying the highest of highs, while potentially enduring heartbreaking lows can be an emotional journey.
Versatile West Coast forward Shanae Davison experienced this journey first-hand, after suffering a devastating ACL injury in a practice match just days before the first game of season seven, which saw her spend the entirety of the season on the sidelines.
Davison’s road to recovery was a long one, but with the help of West Coast’s experienced and dedicated medical staff, she is now successfully on the other side of a tough 12 months.
While rehab is usually a more solitary task, Davison was able to rely on teammates to get her through her time away from football.
“When you talk about ACL injuries, it’s a very long injury to go through,” Davison said.
“I had ‘Wak’ (Lauren Wakfer) and ‘Gibbo’ (Kellie Gibson) there going through a similar recovery, so to be able to go through that together, we were able to find some joy in going through the motions.
“When we came together, we could bounce off each other and pick each other up, so not having those two to rehab with, it would have been a very different experience for me.
“We spent a lot of time with our physios, who made the process more enjoyable and interesting, while also doing everything we had to do to get to where we’re at now, so while it was a long process, we found ways to try and make it fun.”
Only weeks out from the 2023 NAB AFLW season, Davison said she’s enjoyed getting back on the track and can’t wait for the new season to get underway.
“I’m feeling really good, I’m back in full training which has been great, and there’s nothing holding me back,” Davison said.
“I’m so excited to jump into it, this has been the pre-season that I’ve had the most joy going through and I think it’s off the back of the injury and being out for so long.
“It’s been hard work, we’ve had lots of conditioning, but it’s been fun to be on this side of it and being able to push my body and see my knee hold up, so I’m just really excited to get back into it and play footy again.”
West Coast retained the vast majority of last season’s squad, with the addition of former Fremantle forward Amy Franklin, and Davison said the group has showed a lot of promising signs throughout pre-season.
“I think we’ve been really lucky to keep our list together, plus adding ‘Frankie’ into the mix,” Davison said.
“We were competitive last year but just couldn’t finish off games the way we would like, whereas this year, we’re even more competitive, all of our match-sim has been pretty even, and we’ve really cracked in this pre-season.
“I think we’re fitter than what we were and it’s really exciting to see our skills develop and our learnings come into our gameplan.”
West Coast will face the Fremantle Dockers at Fremantle Oval on Sunday, 3 September for round one of the 2023 NAB AFLW season.
