During this game, I spent 2 hours pitchside providing treatment to both teams as there was no therapist with the traveling team. During this game, the first treatment that was needed was for a dislocated finger. The player against advice popped the finger back into position and wanted the tape to support it while they carried on with the rest of the game. The second of the treatments was on a player who had stopped performing rehabilitation early and returned to play before being advised to by our team of therapists and has potentially sprained his ankle again, the player was taken off with a swollen ankle to be treated on the side of the pitch with the P.O.L.I.C.E principles starting with ice.
The next injury was to a player’s shoulder, there were no visible signs of injury such as swelling, dislocation, inflammation, etc. however, after a tackle they had been complaining of pain and guarding their shoulder so the player was taken off to be assessed. The player was unable to do any movements without pain and therefore must rest and come back in 3 days where they can be fully and correctly assessed in the training clinic.

The next injury was a knock to the head and the player was displaying signs of a concussion so was immediately taken off the pitch, the player did not lose consciousness, however, they were feeling dizzy, nauseous and had blurred vision. This player failed a pitchside SCAT test and therefore will need to go and see the doctor to be cleared before coming back and starting their return to play.

Due to the weather conditions, the playing surface was sticky and boots were getting stuck in the ground due to this a player who has just returned from ACL rehabilitation, managed to get their boot stuck into the ground when going into a tackle, however, their knee still twisted inwards putting a stretch on the MCL when the player went to the ground the other player landed on top of this player and pop and scream were heard from the sidelines. When approaching this player we were very cautious with our actions not to move the player to such and to expect the worst. Straight away, you could see that the player had dislocated their knee and an ambulance was called.

Areas for improvement:

For this session, I do not feel as though I have any further improvements at this time. I feel as though I provided treatment to the best of my ability to each player that required it. I dealt well with having to treat both teams which meant keeping track of every player rather than my own recognising when the opposing team needed assistance. I also feel like my confidence in my ability throughout the game was outstanding as I did not doubt myself one bit.

Returning to reflection at a later date:

Returning to this reflection, the player that went down with a dislocated knee had his knee put back into place when the ambulance arrived and was taken to hospital. The player later reported back to us that they had torn their MCL in the process. As this player was not our own the rehabilitation process is not our responsibility but as the therapist was not in attendance when the injury occurred we made contact with them to ensure that they knew what had happened to ensure they were prepared for the rehabilitation that needed to take place with this player.