Experts have speculated that the knee injury that could knock Mary Fowler out of soccer for a year could have been avoided if she and her Matildas teammates had their workloads reduced – with one also bringing up the role another injury might have played in the awful development.
Fowler ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) when she wrenched her right knee while playing for Manchester City in the FA Cup last Sunday and is now in a race against time to play in next year’s home Asian Cup.
City interim manager Nick Cushing had admitted it ‘doesn’t look great imminently’ but said City were ‘not fearing the worst’.
But scans confirmed the dreaded injury, which means Fowler will need to undergo a full knee reconstruction.
Her Matildas teammate Sam Kerr also ruptured her ACL last January and still has not been cleared to return to the field.
Now respected physiotherapist Brian Seeney, who discusses various sporting injuries on his NRL Physio Instagram and X accounts, has weighed in and raised questions about another ailment Fowler was carrying before her disastrous setback.
Two sports medicine experts have raised questions about the injured right hamstring Fowler was carrying when she ruptured a ligament in her right knee (Fowler is pictured with the hamstring strapped in Sydney two weeks before rupturing her ACL)
The Matildas star is expected to be out for roughly a year after the horrible moment as Manchester City played Manchester United (pictured)
‘Horrible to see an ACL rupture now confirmed for Mary Fowler – interesting to read that she had a significant playing & travel load leading up to the injury as well as dealing with a right hamstring issue,’ he wrote on X.
That was backed up by photos of Fowler training with the Matildas in Sydney ahead of their first friendly against South Korea on April 4, where she was seen with her right hamstring taped up.
The muscle was also strapped when she blew out her ACL.
Dr Peter Larkins – who competed for Australia at the Olympics before becoming a specialist sports doctor – also voiced his concerns over the hamstring.
‘No surprise Man City have confirmed devastating right knee acl rupture for Mary Fowler – best the question – what role did her right hamstring concern play in contributing? Clearly was playing with this – always a lesson to learn in hindsight,’ Larkins wrote on X.
Fowler had a very full schedule in the lead-up to the fateful match against Manchester United, with City playing on March 9, 15, 19, 23, 27 and 30, then the Matildas on April 4 and 7, before she suffered the injury on April 13.
Seeney wasn’t the only expert to draw attention to that huge workload when discussing the injury.
Performance coach Paulo Muwonge, who has worked with players from England’s Women’s Super League, connected the number of ACL injuries in the women’s game to the amount of football the stars have to play.
‘70% of the ACL injuries in the women’s game can be avoided by appropriate loading,’ he wrote on Instagram.
Fowler (pictured with boyfriend Nathan Cleary) and her Matildas teammates were enduring a very heavy workload and travel schedule in the lead-up to the injury
‘From experience I can tell that the women are not in good hands when it comes to s&c [strength and conditioning] training and load management.
‘It’s all about loading as minimal as possible because we don’t want to “fatigue” players but it’s actually causing more harm.
‘They need to train properly to become more resilient.’
When world governing body FIFA released their international match calendar last year, Matildas star Ellie Carpenter spoke for many of her teammates when she warned the powers that be about overloading stars.
‘It’s getting tougher every year,’ she said.
‘We’ve expressed these problems to FIFPro [the International Federation of Professional Footballers] recently but we’re all coming back off seasons: a lot of the girls were playing in four competitions this season, a game every three days.
‘We’re all just quite tired … we’re professionals at this now but the schedule is jammed. It’s not OK.’
On Sunday, Fowler’s City teammates made a heartwarming gesture of support for her during their 1-all draw with Everton, with goalscorer Kerstin Casparij celebrating her shot by holding up a City shirt with the Aussie’s name on the back.
Fowler’s team-mate Laura Coombs published an image of Casparij holding the Matildas star’s shirt up, writing: ‘Sad we couldn’t get the win but we love you Mazzy [Fowler].’
The Australian forward re-shared the post onto her Instagram story, writing: ‘Love yous too.’
