Chad Wingard is not done yet

Chad Wingard knew in an instant it was bad – and he wondered, in that moment, if this was the end.

It was August 13, 2023, only minutes into Hawthorn’s match against the Western Bulldogs at Launceston’s York Park.

Wingard took a few steps backward, then tried to change direction to chase the player he was marking, but his left leg gave way beneath him.

“I thought I got kicked in the back of my leg, turned around and there was no-one there,” he said.

“It was a mechanism that I’ve done so many times as a forward, just lean back and push off, but it just went nowhere.”

Down on the Tasmanian turf he crashed.

It would be the last game of the 2023 season for a 30-year-old player on an expiring contract.

A photo taken in the moments afterwards shows him gazing off into the crowd as two trainers help him hobble to the sidelines.

What was he thinking in that moment?

“As soon as the injury happened, my first thought was ‘this could be it’,” he says.

“I didn’t want my last moment in the AFL to be getting injured five minutes after the start of a game.”

Mercifully, his support network – and two people in particular – helped him through the hours and days afterwards as he rehabilitated his torn achilles tendon.

The first was Robert McCartney, Hawthorn’s head of football.

“Rob, the general manager at the Hawks, said to me straight afterwards, ‘Mate, we’re going to look after you’,” Wingard says.

“It was pretty powerful, when you think that it could be nine months, 12 months before I could play again.”

The club signed him to a new contract within weeks: “the most meaningful contract of my career”.

Stories create community. You can help Murray Bridge News tell our community’s stories.

The other was his partner, Lilly Lloyd.

“(She) got me through it,” he says.

“She played a pivotal role in the first two to six weeks.

“I was in a cast and I had to elevate my leg for 20 hours a day for the best part of two weeks.

“I couldn’t really cook, I was on two crutches and in the cast.

“If I didn’t have someone to help me … just to say ‘it’s going to be okay, these are the steps we’re going to take, we’re going to get back,’ I don’t know what I would have done.”

To read more of this story, pick up a copy of the autumn 2024 edition of Murraylands Life magazine.

Where to get your copy of Murraylands Life magazine

The autumn edition of Murraylands Life magazine will be available at more than 60 newsagents, supermarkets, hotels, service stations, accommodation providers and other outlets around the region from this Friday, March 8.

Find your free copy at Callington, Coonalpyn, Karoonda, Lameroo, Mannum, Monarto, Murray Bridge, Mypolonga, Pinnaroo, Tailem Bend or Wellington; or at selected visitor information centres around South Australia.

Copies may take a few extra days to reach some locations.

If you can’t find a copy at your local pick-up point, let us know by emailing murraylandslife@gmail.com – we’ll circle back to top up supplies as required.

Alternatively, subscribe to Murraylands Life magazine at murraybridgenews.square.site and we’ll post our next four editions direct to you for the cost of postage and handling.

Advertising space is now available in the winter edition, due for publication in June.

• More information: Visit www.murraylands.life or email jane@murraybridge.news.

Stories create community. You can help Murray Bridge News tell our community’s stories.