THE FIRST thing Tom Green remembers is the pain.
"First of all, it hurt way more than I thought it would," Green tells AFL.com.au.
When his left knee planted to avoid a Toby Bedford tackle in one of Greater Western Sydney's final pre-season outings before the real thing kicked off, Green knew instantly that something was wrong. He knew that what he'd done was serious.
"I know some people do their knee and they're not sure because it feels all right," Green says. "But it, like, really hurt. I was on the ground like, 'Oh my God'. After that, when I tried to put weight on it and it buckled, I just knew I'd done it."
The pain emanating from the ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in Green's left knee was agony. But it was nothing compared to surgery. As the Giants midfielder went under the knife, using portions of his patella tendon to create a graft to stabilise his knee, he awoke from the operation realising the full extent of his injury.
"I felt horrific," Green says.
"The painkillers, I'm so bad on them. They just made me feel horrible. It lowers your blood pressure so much that I could barely even sit up. I was just lying in bed for a week. If I took anything, I was basically straight asleep. I'd sleep all through the night, then I reckon I was only awake for three hours a day. I'd take the painkillers during the day and just go back to sleep. It was just horrible."
All injuries, particularly ACLs, are cruel. But for Green, it felt especially brutal. Fresh off a campaign where he'd claimed his first Kevin Sheedy Medal as the club's best and fairest, and been named in the All-Australian squad for the second time, the momentum building towards the 25-year-old becoming one of the most dominant forces in the League felt like a freight train. Within one otherwise innocuous moment, though, that freight train came to a shuddering halt.
Where a month ago the pain had been physical, the mental side of the year-long recovery that lies ahead is just as challenging. It's here, battling the emotional toll of his significant injury, where Green's perspective is unique. For now, he's doing fine. He knows that won't always be the case, though, and he's ready for it.
"I haven't had any tears yet, but I know they're coming," Green says.
"That's footy, but it's also life. Mental health is not something that you only think about when it's bad. Mental health is a constant scale of how you're operating. Sometimes you're healthy, sometimes you're not. Like, I'm not worried about the next time I'm going to be sick. I know that I'll be sick at some point in my life, but I'm not going to worry about it until then.
"I understand that at some point, I'm going to be upset and it's going to be shit and it's going to be hard. But I'm not going to worry about that until I'm there. When you're there, you work through it and deal with it however you need to.
"I understand that it's human and I'm not afraid to cry or deal with those emotions. When it comes, you just have to make sure you do all the things you can to help yourself and look after yourself. It's also important to allow yourself to feel that stuff. Dialling it up and not dealing with it is not a healthy way of going about it."
Green doesn't want his year spent wallowing in pity. Watch him play and you'll know that he's clever, ambitious and incredibly tough. He's all of those things, amplified even further, away from the field. Already, the star contested beast and future Giants captain is changing the narrative of how his gap year will look. He's determined to challenge himself and make the most of what he sees as an opportunity, as opposed to looking at it like a wasted season.
Texts from superstars across the AFL landscape provided the initial motivation for his outlook. Christian Petracca, Bailey Smith, Will Ashcroft and Sam Docherty were among the former ACL victims to get in touch immediately afterwards. Even those who had never endured the pain of an ACL injury, like Lachie Neale, sent messages of encouragement.
But, make no mistake, most of Green's next 12 months will be self-initiated. He has already lined up media commitments, with a regular radio slot and potential broadcast commentary positions being discussed. He also wants to coach and has plans to shadow Adam Kingsley and relay messages to teammates on the interchange bench in a game day role.
The side's AFLW program has also been in touch. It would like Green to provide leadership expertise to its developing program at some stage in the future. Meanwhile, the club's recruiting and list management team wants him to become involved in helping shape the future direction of the side at different stages throughout the season.
He wants to travel and is planning a mid-year mental refresher, both to take a break away from the club and to try his hand in a rehabilitation program overseas. He's studying a commerce degree at university, while he's also got a new puppy, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Evie, to keep him occupied.
Green even spent last Tuesday sitting in on the club's nine-person executive team meeting, taking notes alongside the big boss in CEO Dave Matthews and learning about the commercial, operational and financial workings of the League's newest side.
"It was quite interesting," Green laughs. "It was interesting in the way that you don't get to see that side of it as a player. You don't think about it very often. There was some stuff that, I've got to be honest, wasn't the most interesting to me. But there was some stuff that I found interesting too."
Green, ever the pragmatist, has even found the potential football advantages to his significant injury blow. He looks at Scott Pendlebury, still one of the competition's most influential figures at 38 years of age and approaching a record 433rd AFL appearance, and questions whether a year out of the game could help him in a decade's time.
"Once it all happened, I personally tried to think pretty practically," Green says.
"My season is done, so I have to attack rehab now. You can't change it, it's just what you've got to do. Yeah, there are moments where you just think, 'Why me?' It sucks. But is there an opportunity to pick something up? I think it would be silly to treat this like a wasted year. Maybe I can't do much on the field, but there are so many different areas of your life – both personally and professionally – that you can get far better at when this stuff happens.
"The other area I'm hoping this is potentially going to help – if everything goes well with the knee and I come back playing well – is that I play in a very combative position. Inside mid, it takes a big toll on your body. Not only the kilometres that you run, but the collisions that you have. I think there's scope to believe that missing a year or giving your body a year-long break might add some years on the back end.
"I don't want to put a cap on when I stop playing. Guys like Scott Pendlebury are very inspirational. He's one of one, but I'd like to think with modern medicine and everything else, careers are going to get longer. Maybe there's an opportunity for my body to have a break this year and add some years at the end."
Green has still kept his sense of humour, as well. Knee injury or not, he's still the same jovial figure among teammates. The cheeky Canberra kid who hosted one of footy's most entertaining podcasts, and the one who also used a previous interview to try and land a date with Dua Lipa.
"The Pendlebury stuff is all presuming I can still get a kick after this," he laughs. "We'll wait and see on that. But you've got to be able to look at it positively. If you get caught in the dumps too much, you can waste the year. That's not my intention."
It's also not Green's intention to give up. He ruptured his ACL on February 13. If the Giants go deep in September once again, it would give the star midfielder seven months to recover in time to play finals football. While he's realistic, he's also ambitious. His motto is simple: never say never.
"I don't want to say no, because what if I can?" Green asks.
"I don't want to put a limit on what is attainable. I want to give myself every opportunity to do so. If my rehab progresses well enough, why couldn't I? I'm not saying that it's likely or anything like that, but if I'm progressing through everything at a rate that means I could play this year then I'd absolutely love to. If that doesn't happen, I guess not. But I don't want to close myself off to anything."
