Sal Says Say No to Giants
Salopek feared he'd sustained a season-ending knee injury when he collided with teammate Chad Cornes in a marking contest earlier this month.
The 25-year-old had to be helped from the field and said he was preparing to receive the worst news possible when he walked into the doctor's office to get his scan results.
"I had a bit of an incident at training with Chad Cornes. Chad ended up with some stitches in his head and I ended up with a sore knee," Salopek told afl.com.au.
"It was a major scare. When it happened I thought I'd done some serious damage. I screamed a fair bit, not from pain but because of the sheer fact I could've done some major damage and easily been out for the season.
"Luckily, the scans showed it was just a bit of bone bruising."
The positive diagnosis was a relief for Salopek who is yet to make it through a full season unscathed in eight years in the AFL system.
The former top-10 draft pick missed the latter part of last season after being booked in for surgery on his shoulder, which dislocated three times in as many weeks prior to the mid-year break.
It was to be the courageous onballer's fourth shoulder reconstruction and his medical team decided to take a different approach to the surgery.
"I'd had a couple of reconstructions already, so we thought we'd try something different to see if we could change it up a bit," Salopek said.
"I went to Sydney to have it done and the surgeon there used a bigger screw and made things a little tighter. It's holding together really well and the success rate is really good.
"I was back training by November and being able to run and do competitive work prior to Christmas was a big plus for me because I haven't been able to do that in the last six or seven years."
Salopek had completed the whole pre-season prior to injuring his knee on the eve of Port Adelaide's NAB Cup opener.
He missed the opening two games of the club's pre-season campaign, but is likely to be recalled, along with promising midfielder Hamish Hartlett and ruckman Dean Brogan, to the team to take on Geelong at AAMI Stadium on Friday night.
After two seasons playing across half-back, Salopek is being groomed for a full-time midfield role this year.
The skilful clearance player reached the 100-game milestone last season and said he was confident his best football was still ahead of him.
"I just need to play some games to get some form and consistency in my footy and with age comes a bit more experience and knowledge of the game itself," he said.
"I feel I've matured a fair bit just in terms of my knowledge of the game, the structures and opposition players.
"With the new substitute rule I might have to spend a bit of time down in defence just to get a bit of a blow out, but 95 per cent of my pre-season has been in the midfield."
