NORTH Melbourne's high performance boss Alex Moore says Majak Daw's rapid rate of recovery, after smashing his hips and pelvis in mid-December, "doesn't make sense".
The Kangaroo defender will make a miraculous return to the VFL this weekend.
Moore told SEN that he had been involved in elite sport for nearly 20 years and had never seen a recovery quite like Daw's.
"So something pretty amazing happened today ... I’m so thankful for all the support that’s got me to this stage" - @majakdaw. #North150 pic.twitter.com/RpEQjLaTuI
— North Melbourne (@NMFCOfficial) March 14, 2019
"When I first saw him in hospital, I thought at best – at this point in the year – we'd be lucky to have him walking properly," Moore said.
"With the nature of his injuries, he wasn't able to walk for a period of time, and we had to basically retrain how to walk and make those movements automatic.
I don't think anyone's ever rehabbed this type of injury and got back to this level of sport - Alex Moore
"It's incredible how fast he's healed and also how fast he's been able to develop all the characteristics he needs to be able to play AFL football.
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Majak Daw and Scott Thompson having a laugh at training. Picture: Getty Images
"We had a pretty rigorous process in terms of getting him back and making sure he's able to do all the skills. The entire process, we've just been shocked as a medical and as a performance team.
"We've just looked at him and it doesn't make sense at how quickly he's been able to do it."
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Moore said the steps involved in Daw's rehabilitation started with weight bearing, then moving onto walking without a limp, building his walking endurance, increasing the range of motion of his hips, running on a weight-bearing treadmill and then running outside.
"I don't think anyone's ever rehabbed this type of injury and got back to this level of sport," he said.
"Because there's no template for this, it's not like an ACL or an Achilles tendon or any injury like that, we don't really have a template to follow.
Majak Daw faces the media on Monday. Picture: AFL Photos
"So what we've done, we've had three or four key markers or tests to look for, and we've just given him a slightly increased dose each week. We've seen how he responds, and if he pulls up sore then we back off for a bit until his body adapts."
Daw is a noted athlete, but Moore detailed how that almost worked to his detriment in the early stages.
"He just responds to training so fast. We had problems initially because he wasn't able to do any lower-body work, we started doing some upper-body work and he got so big so quickly.
"We had to limit that because we didn't want someone coming back and running on a fractured pelvis with a lot of upper body weight.
"He's just applied himself unbelievably and just put so much work in. He hasn't missed a session this entire time, hasn't been late, he's just has been so easy to train, really."
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