FOR many local footballers, Saturday marked the beginning of the new football season. For Heidelberg’s Nick Miller it also marked the end of a long road back from injury.
When the Tigers midfielder set foot onto Yulong Reserve for his club’s Round 1 encounter against Bundoora it ended a 1296-day hiatus from playing senior football.
Miller’s last senior game in yellow and black was the 2011 Division 1 Grand Final – also against the Bulls – where the Tigers suffered an 11-point loss in the premiership decider.
For both Miller and Heidelberg it was a second successive Grand Final defeat after falling to West Preston-Lakeside in the 2010 decider 12 months earlier.
Having firmly established himself in Heidelberg’s line-up, Miller was on the verge of becoming one of his club’s leading players in 2012.
However an innocuous incident in Heidelberg’s annual pre-season hitout against North Hobart in Tasmania brought his emerging football career to a halt.
“It was a nothing incident,” Miller recalled to NFL.org.au this week.
“I was running and went to change direction and my foot got stuck in the ground. The momentum of my body shifted over my knee and it just twisted awkwardly.
“It didn’t really hurt to be honest, it just felt like a pop. I walked off and was walking around after the game thinking I’d just twisted it and that it’d be all right.
“The next day I couldn’t really move it so I had to get home and have it scanned and it was obviously a lot more serious.”
Scans confirmed Miller would require a knee reconstruction which would rule him out of the 2012 season.
Cruelly, it marked the beginning of a wretched run with injury for the emerging star.
After spending 12 long months recovering from the knee reconstruction, Miller blew out his ‘good’ knee as he attempted a similar manoeuvre in his return match – a reserves grade clash against Northcote Park in the opening round of the 2013 season.
The diagnosis was equally grim – Miller would require a second knee reconstruction.
“When I did the second one I turned a bit off footy and I decided to go overseas for five months,” Miller said.
“I went over to Europe with a couple of mates and it took my mind off it. I hadn’t even had the operation so I wasn’t even thinking about football.
“I eventually had the operation and hadn’t even thought about playing again.”
As his knees slowly began to strengthen, Miller began considering a return to the football field.
Believing his chances of again playing senior football at Heidelberg might have been behind him, Miller began planning to have a kick with some mates elsewhere.
However, after talking to the coaching staff at Heidelberg, the midfielder decided to stay put at Warringal Park.
After impressing in his return to the training track over a gruelling pre-season, Miller’s decision to remain at Tigerland was rewarded with selection for the club’s 2015 season opener against fierce rival Bundoora.
The 25-year-old conceded he was shocked to be selected in the senior team.
“I didn’t expect it to be honest. I honestly thought I’d be playing twos in Round 1 so it was a bit of a shock,” he said.
Playing through the midfield and across half forward, Miller played a hand in a number of early goals as Heidelberg jumped to a quarter-time lead.
The Tigers’ buffer extended over the second and third quarters, with the four points all but secured by three-quarter time when they led by 33 points.
Relieved to have made it through the match unscathed, Miller said his return game was filled with different emotions.
“I was pretty nervous. It was also exciting just to be out there. It was good to be back basically and felt like I had closure after a long time out,” he said.
“It was a massive adjustment getting used to the speed of the game and everything.
“Now I pretty much want to get my head above water and hopefully stay in the ones. I’ll take each week as it comes.
“We’ve got pretty strong numbers this year so it will be a tough ask to keep a spot but I’ll take it a step at a time.”
