Colac football export Nathan Foley can see light at the end of the tunnel with the injury that has interrupted his AFL career.
The Richmond vice-captain is back running and confident a second operation to repair his injured right ankle has been a success.
Silence from Punt Road about Foley’s injury led to speculation the star midfielder would miss a large part of this season because the problem was failing to improve.
But Foley, 24, said the injury which restricted him to 14 matches last season was recovering as planned and he was confident he would not endure a repeat of last season.
“I’ll be fine, it’s going well now, that certainly won’t be the case,” he said.
“Round one is a little way off but it’s something that’s in the back of my mind, time will tell, I’ll know a little bit more in a couple of weeks.
“But hopefully it’s sooner rather than later.”
With the club unable to play finals, Tigers officials sacrificed Foley for surgery early last season to set him up for a solid pre-season to launch into 2010.
But Foley realised something was still not right when simple running was painful.
“I wasn’t able to run the way I liked to and it didn’t feel quite right and after going through the right channels with the medical guys they decided to operate again,” he said.
“It wasn’t a significant operation, it was a very minor clean up.
“I had to take time off because of the wound but as of today I’ve been back running one-and-a-half to two weeks, so I’ve started progressing well with that now.”
Foley’s Tigers have endured a tough few years but Foley seemed genuinely buoyed about where the club was headed under new coach Damien Hardwick, who has worked hard during pre-season to transform the Tigers’ game plan.
Foley’s leadership role makes him a figurehead for the Tigers’ recruits and he said there were positive signs for Richmond fans with David Astbury, Matt Dea and Dustin Martin showing promise in their first few months at Punt Road.
Richmond’s 51-point win against reigning premier Geelong in a pre-season friendly at the weekend was a modest first step given what was a stake.
But Foley said the win was a sign Hardwick’s
new game plan was sinking in.
“Obviously Geelong were under-manned and you don’t get too excited about this time of year,” he said.
“But the exciting thing for us is that our structure and game style worked well because that’s what our focus has been on, getting that structure right.”

Nathan Foley