Carlton have confirmed former skipper Sam Docherty will be selected for their elimination final against Brisbane on Saturday night, six months after rupturing his ACL.
In an AFL comeback story as remarkable as it is poetic, Docherty will return to the scene of his third ACL injury, the Gabba, where he went down in Opening Round against his former club on March 8.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Docherty named to play in elimination final.
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7NEWS Melbourne’s Mitch Cleary first flagged the possibility of this comeback in July.
The 30-year-old was told on Tuesday morning that he would make his return, just 183 days after going down.
“Having progressed through his rehabilitation for the last five months with his personal sights set on a 2024 return, the Blues veteran has put himself in a position to play for the club’s second straight September campaign,” the club said in a statement.
“It will mean that Docherty’s most recent three games will all come against his old side Brisbane at the Gabba: the 2023 preliminary final, 2024 Opening Round and now the 2024 elimination final.”
The Blues made the announcement ahead of Thursday’s official teams release, when Docherty could be one of as many as nine injured players to come back into the team.
Carlton have navigated their way through an injury crisis in the final few weeks of the season with key position players Charlie Curnow, Harry McKay, Tom De Koning and Mitch McGovern plus Zac Williams, Adam Cerra and Jack Martin all racing the clock to be fit for Saturday night.
Caleb Marchbank is also a chance, but nine changes to a team for a final would be considered an extraordinary risk.
Speaking over the past weekend, before Docherty’s inclusion was confirmed, Blues skipper Patrick Cripps backed the veteran in.
“He is just a great story. He has done a lot of work (and) he has been doing that for a good month, six weeks, of training,” Cripps said.
“He has put his hand up but the coaches have got to pick a side they think is best.
“Personally I love playing with him. He has been through a lot, we have been through a lot together and he is a guy you trust on a footy field.
“If he gets picked, you know he’s going to perform.”
Coach Michael Voss said last week that he was expecting Docherty to put his hand up.
“He’s progressing really, really well. I would anticipate he will roll in on Monday and say he’s ready to go,” Voss said of Docherty four days ago.
“It’s a pretty complex thing to work through though and it’s probably made a little bit harder given we’ve got other players who haven’t played a lot of footy of late as well.
“My information throughout this whole period of time is that if he’s ready to play, it’s earlier than we anticipated but his recovery has gone really well, the medical team and high performance team have gone to work, he looks great on the track and is doing his work.
“And he’s just this unique human being with this ability to get out there and perform off a limited preparation and when I came in in 2022 he’d hardly done a hell of a lot his recovery from cancer and he set his sights on Round 1.”
