Bell Park’s quest to end a 15-year premiership drought has suffered a significant blow, with star defender Ben Lloyd to miss the season with a serious knee injury.
Scans have confirmed the playing assistant coach suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament during the Dragons’ practice match against North Ballarat at Mars Stadium on Sunday.
“He left his man to attack a ground ball, and it became a 50-50 contest, and I think he planted his foot and went to change direction, and something gave way,” coach James Saker said.
“Following that was a heavy collision, so we weren’t sure, in the immediate aftermath, whether it was a break, a dislocation or what had happened.
“He was in a fair bit of pain.
“It was quite odd because he couldn’t recall having a collision with his opponent. He just remembers the pain of the knee giving way.”
Lloyd, who joined Bell Park from Ovens and Murray club North Albury in 2019, has been an important player since arriving at Hamlyn Park.
He won the Dragons’ best-and-fairest in 2021 and 2024 and has earned multiple GFNL Team of the Year selections.
Lloyd spent two seasons with Geelong’s VFL team, playing 33 games, and finishing fourth in the Cats’ best-and-fairest in 2022 and tied for seventh in 2023.
“He’s our most important player in terms of the way he organises things and leads,” Saker said. “So no point sugarcoating that.
“From our perspective, you know, we’re not going to be able to replace him.
“But we do have a lot of depth in our backline stocks, and it’s just going to be one of those ones where the guys around him are going to have to shoulder some of the load that he otherwise would have carried.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had experience in losing our top-end guys with ‘Bridgie’ (Ollie Bridgewater) last year, and we managed to make a good fist of that.
“Probably one silver lining is he’s an assistant coach, and his value in that space will be enormous.
“The character that he is, once he gets through this initial phase, he’ll be brilliant for our guys off-field, teaching and developing our backline group.”
In better news out of Hamlyn Park, Bridgewater, who missed the 2025 season with a broken leg suffered in a practice match with VFL club Werribee, has got through both of Bell Park’s practice matches unscathed.
He will feature again in the hitout with VAFA club Old Carey on April 11 before making his long-awaited return to GFNL action the following week against South Barwon.
Jack McMahon is also making progress in his return from a dislocated hip, playing managed minutes against Torquay and North Ballarat.
However, former Geelong Falcon Zac McInnes is still battling an ongoing ankle complaint.
“He’s not progressing wonderfully,” Saker said.
“He’s got some more specialist appointments in the next couple of weeks to try and get a bit more clarity about how he can move forward.”
X: @krockfootball
