GEELONG says a knee injury suffered last year is still causing issues for youngster Nakia Cockatoo.
The luckless 22-year-old hasn’t played at any level since suffering damage to posterior cruciate ligament for a second time in 2018 during a VFL match at Sandringham on July 15.
It was his first match back from a similar injury suffered in the Round 3 loss to West Coast three months earlier.
Cockatoo has also battled groin issues over the pre-season and a bout of tonsilitis.
“The big picture issue is that he’s recovering from a PCL injury that he had surgery on last year,” Scott said.
“And there are some examples around the competition of players with PCL injuries that take a long time – longer than expected time to recover – and he just appears to be one of them for us.”
There is no timeframe on the return of Cockatoo, who has played just 34 of a possible 96 games since being drafted with pick No.10 in the 2014 National Draft.
Speaking to K rock Football on the eve of the 2019 season, Chris Scott again admitted he was “concerned” we’d never see the best of the livewire forward.
“We don’t want to be too pessimistic about it, but I think any thinking person could see through any sort of dialogue where we said; “don’t worry. He’ll be fine”,” Scott said.
“Because his history now is just littered with, for the most part, some incidents that involve bad luck.
“But history’s also littered with players who have bad luck and never reach their potential.
“Now, he’s not at that stage, but we are concerned.
“We are just going to be so careful with his return to play because we’d much rather wait an extra year if it takes that long to get the best footy out of Nakia when he’s in his prime because the payoff will be significant.”
Twitter: @tom_king79
