Thoughts are with you Xavier

[saintbrat]

NT News Footy‏@JessWebster21
NT champ Xavier Clarke needs 3rd knee reco. Said he's "done for the #NTFL season and probably forever." Full story in tmrws @TheNTNews.

Prayers are with you as you yet again face recovery.... such promise..

[Eastern]

NT News Footy‏@JessWebster21
NT champ Xavier Clarke needs 3rd knee reco. Said he's "done for the #NTFL season and probably forever." Full story in tmrws @TheNTNews.

Prayers are with you as you yet again face recovery.... such promise..

All the best, X !!

[Junction Oval]

For those who met him and got to know him, what a wonderful guy.

[gringo]

Poor bugger. Talented but fragile knees unfortunately.

[Munga]

Probably the most wasted talent of the last decade. Would've been a gun.

[BigMart]

Was at Frankston when he did his knee early 05

He was easily BOG until he went down, and was destroying them.... Too classy, too quick and set up almost every goal from HF.... He was like Schnieder with some pace...

Knee was an innocuous incident... And it was a real shame...

2009 XClarke without a knee.... StK with a second Cup

He was a touch more skilful than Robert

[savatage]

Ripper bloke. Very sad.

[st_Trav_ofWA]

Probably the most wasted talent of the last decade. Would've been a gun.

I wouldn't say wasted talent ... More unfortunate injurys that robbed us all of seeing his talent more often

[noob]

Still got the 100 + games which is a great achievement with all the injuries he had.

[BigMart]

09 that should be...

[saintbrat]

Still got the 100 + games which is a great achievement with all the injuries he had.

the varying paths that affect players progress-
Xavier and Kosi ran out together for their 100th game- X played for more for the saints and 10 min for the lions
Kos has played 99 more for the Saint with 1 more to come..

[BigMart]

Both tragedies..... J.Koschitzke (Back/Head), X. Clarke (Knee)

As were Rap Clarke (back), A. Hamill (hip), M.Maguire (leg), L. Ball (OP), F.Watts (ankle), J. Allen (Hip), L.Penny (Hip)

I mean seriously
9 career defining or career ending injuries... That's half a team

2001-2013

Add to that all that have had to return from significant injury season ending
Hayes (knee *2)
Goddard (knee)
Dempster (knee)
Gwilt (knee)
Riewoldt (knee/Hamstring/Knee)
Schnieder (chronic hamstring)
Markworth (knee)
Montagna (ankle)
Dal Santo (Quad)
Gardiner (foot)
Harvey (knee)
Fisher (foot)
Milera (ankle)


There'd be more also..... Every team has injuries.... We have catastrophes

[thejiggingsaint]

I still remember that wonderful mark Xavier took against Carlton in 2002. A spectacular player on his day, a first class person to boot! It makes me very sad to see such talent taken from the game, but also very thankful to have had the chance to see him play, and to have met him in person. A great loss to the game, all the very best for your future "X"! From a grateful old Sainter

[ralphsmith]

holy **** x clarke is a tragedy of the highest order, the very highest

fantastic skill, fantastic leap

terrible luck with injuries

[CURLY]

People bag the club for taking X at 5 but he was s jet and we would have won Back to Back with X and still had pick 16 to use rather than trade it for pace.

[bergholt]

Montagna (ankle)
Dal Santo (Quad)

Dal's played 20 or more games for 10 seasons in a row now. Joey will have done it for 8 years after this weekend. How long ago were these injuries you're talking about? And how much has it affected their careers?

[BigMart]

2003 Dal missed 13 weeks + pre season with a significant quad injury

Joey broke his ankle in 2002 and missed most of the season... An ankle break is not great, I can testify...

Good they got there injuries out of the way, but still better without them...

[bergholt]

2003 Dal missed 13 weeks + pre season with a significant quad injury

Joey broke his ankle in 2002 and missed most of the season... An ankle break is not great, I can testify...

Good they got there injuries out of the way, but still better without them...

Right. Dal was 19 in 2003, Joey was 18 in 2002. That's a long time ago. They went on to have very successful careers. And you call these "catastrophes"? How many players go through their careers without a serious injury at some point?

Are you really saying that injuries at the Saints are somehow worse than at any other club?

[BigMart]

The catastrophe is the sheer number of season ending, career defining, career ending injuries..... But it was a bit obvious I was referring mainly about the ones who never recovered

Nick Riewoldts knee in 2001 didn't effect his star studded career too much either...

Hayes won the B&F after he did his..... Knee the second time.... But losing arguably the best player is not great

Ask any of those at the time

[bergholt]

The catastrophe is the sheer number of season ending, career defining, career ending injuries..... But it was a bit obvious I was referring mainly about the ones who never recovered

Maybe you should just have listed them then? It's hard to predict which bits of your posts you see as being relevant to your argument, and which we should just ignore.

[Sainter93]

Poor bloke, shocking to hear His knees are as fragile as Menzels

[Hurricane]

Horrible luck. X was a quality person and every time I was lucky enough to talk to him was fantastic. It's one of the biggest tragedies of modern football that X didn't have a long successful career with St Kilda jam packed with highlights that would make Cyril Rioli jealous and Brucies panties wet.

BANG BANG

[joffaboy]

Apparently Raphs fault

[stinger]

was tipped at one stage to go no 1 in the draft for the following year.....eventually slipped to no 5.....champion footballer...champion bloke...imho....

[GrumpyOne]

...champion bloke.....

Absolutely.

An opinion that would be shared by anyone that met him.