Cecilia McIntosh: The Hardest Road
- Nov 2, 2016
- 5 min read
You’d be hard pressed to find an AFL Women’s draftee whose road to selection met more challenges than that of the oldest: Collingwood defender Cecilia McIntosh.
In the last fifteen months, fate has played every cruel trick in the book against the 37-year old. A knee reconstruction, hamstring and calf strains, an ongoing back complaint and a nightmare match on the big stage threatened to derail her dream of playing in the inaugural national competition. Now, she has come out on the other side.
By 2015, McIntosh was one of Victoria’s most prolific and respected defenders. After a javelin-throwing career that included a silver medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games, she joined Melbourne Uni in 2007 and promptly won the Premier Division Best First Year Player Award and followed it up with the 2008 Best and Fairest Award. She had been selected for Vic Metro four times and even won an All-Australian jersey.
Standing at just 5”3, McIntosh relies on speed and intensity as well as an inside-out understanding of her craft: each opponent is studied and detailed in approach.
On May 24 2015, in the Women’s AFL Exhibition match between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, the challenges began. Late in the first quarter, the then 35-year old changed direction and her right knee gave way beneath her. The Melbourne doctor gave her the bad news in the rooms. She had done her ACL.
McIntosh’s timing was particularly dire as the Victorian Women’s Football League was set to expand into the Victorian Football League ahead of the 2017 AFL competition. Not only was her age set to work against her recovery, she needed to play enough of the 2016 season at full form to convince selectors that she hadn’t lost any of her touch.
“I know what I’m like at being able to come back from injury,” says McIntosh, who has undergone seven surgeries across her sporting career. “I’m probably more proud of my career because of what I’ve had to come back from.”
After 318 days of recovery with Slav Tortevski and the Strength and Conditioning Team at ESS Performance, McIntosh’s first return to football was not in a practice match or training session but against the top-four bound Eastern Devils. Melbourne Uni coach Andrew Jago had backed her all the way and didn’t hide her on the field.
She couldn’t have asked for a better return: she held Devil forward Pepa Randall goalless, ended up slotting the winning goal and then received the call from Melbourne coach Michelle Cowan notifying her that she would return to the red and blue for their clash with Brisbane at the MCG on May 22.
The Demons dominated the baby Lion cubs and McIntosh was on top of the world.
“It was great for my confidence to do that. Couldn’t have asked for a more perfect way to come back,” she says.
The remainder of her VFL season was hardly smooth-sailing however as hamstring and calf strains as well as a chronic back ailment kept her out of a further six games before she shut down Devil forward Sarah D’Arcy in the semi-final and earned her third selection for Melbourne in the final Exhibition match against the Western Bulldogs.
McIntosh thought that the worst was behind her. It wasn’t.
The Women’s All-Stars Exhibition match between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs at the Whitten Oval on September 3 was the most triumphant showcase yet for women’s football. The best players in the country put on a freewheeling match that was not only proof that the inaugural national season would produce good footy but was a Channel Seven ratings smash. Everyone was a winner.
Except Cecilia McIntosh.
Having held Moana Hope goalless in Melbourne Uni’s Round 11 clash with St Kilda in July, McIntosh volunteered to take on the Bulldogs’ most dangerous forward. However, it was never on her terms: Melbourne gambled on having her play off Hope for quick rebound. Already playing against her natural style, McIntosh then dislocated her right shoulder in a contest with Bulldog star Katie Brennan in the first quarter. After an even first half, the Bulldogs’ midfield got on top and the Melbourne defence was under siege. Hope was at her irrepressible best and finished with six goals.
Between the crowd and the live broadcast, one million people watched the match. Spectators, fans, friends, family, reporters, players, coaches and AFL selectors. Few knew that McIntosh was good enough to nullify Hope and none knew what had happened behind the scenes. All that the viewers saw was Moana Hope breathing fire. And Cecilia McIntosh getting burned.
In the bowels of the Whitten Oval change rooms after the match, McIntosh sat head bowed as a hushed bevy of sympathetic teammates and coaches drifted past. Eventually, she was alone. Nothing remained but the ache of defeat, the pain in her shoulder, the uncertainty about her future and the fear that the draft chance for which she had fought so long and so hard had just slipped through her hands.
“I was devastated. That nearly cost me a position in the draft.”
It took just two days for everything to fall back into perspective as McIntosh was cleared of any major shoulder damage and was then selected to play in Melbourne Uni’s preliminary final against St Kilda – where she would come up against Hope.
In the end, the Mugars dominated from start to finish and McIntosh held Hope goalless until halfway through the final quarter. The previous Saturday night had faded like a bad dream but her draft selection was still very much out of her control.
McIntosh was one of fifty players invited to the draft at the NAB Centre on October 12 but it was a day to expect the unexpected. The first fifty selections rolled by and McIntosh wasn’t amongst them. Or the next fifty. She had nominated to play for a Victorian club and her chances were dwindling with every passing nomination. Fifteen months of bad luck and struggle were passing before her eyes.
“Just before I got drafted, I didn’t think I was going to get drafted. And it was in my mind then that the All-Stars game cost me -”
“Pick 123… to the Collingwood Football Club. Cecilia. McIntosh.”
The night is darkest just before the dawn.
Ironically, Collingwood had already signed Hope as a marquee player. They won’t have to worry about each other until the next VFL season.
McIntosh is now part of a star-studded backline including Meg Hutchins, Penny Cula-Reid and Melbourne Uni teammate Nicola Stevens. At 37, she is comfortably the oldest player in the fledgling competition.
“I don’t want to retire now, are you kidding me?” McIntosh laughs. “This has made me want to do it even more. “I’m 37 and I feel like I’m starting all over again. It’s 20 years since I made my first national team and the excitement’s still the same.”
Comments