'My time will come': Young Blue learns from 'nightmare' injury

Jagga Smith during the Carlton Official Team Photo Day at IKON Park, February 10, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos

THE SCENE doesn't leave Jagga Smith's head. He's not sure it ever will.

Four months after Carlton's No.3 draft pick was told he was going to miss his entire debut season with a knee injury that shocked the football world, the moment when it felt both most and least real sticks in his mind.

Nearly three weeks passed after the unfortunate, oh-so-common twist of a knee that led to the ACL diagnosis when the swelling had subsided enough for Smith to undergo surgery at Epworth Hospital. A local in the inner-city area, Smith had walked and driven past the hospital thousands of times but hadn't needed to know his way inside. That's what happens when you have never been injured before in your junior career.

But now he was, and he was about to have the surgery to start a 12-month rehabilitation process. The debut he was days away from achieving, against Richmond in front of 80,000 fans at the MCG in round one, had been delayed until 2026. A dual reality dawned on him as he saw blue scrubs run around the hospital rather than the Blues jumper he felt so ready to put on.

"It was a couple of weeks of real pain and sadness after the injury and before I had surgery. It wasn't easy at all. Often there were tears," Smith told AFL.com.au this week.

"I remember going in for surgery on the eve of the season and being in that waiting room for surgery, and on my phone I'm seeing all these boys who I got drafted with getting announced for their debuts and I was going into surgery to get my knee reconstructed.

Jagga Smith limps from the field during the match simulation between Carlton and St Kilda at Ikon Park, February 22, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos

"I was thinking 'This is just unfair. This is a nightmare'. I just didn't think that a knee injury like this would happen to me, but that's how naïve you are when you're young and you haven't been injured. I remember that clearly, sitting in that waiting room on my phone and going 'This is a nightmare'."

Smith is through that phase now. Not many injuries to yet-to-debut players struck as firmly as Smith's in February this year, when an innocuous incident in a pre-season game against St Kilda, his first appearance in the navy blue, turned out to be season-ending.

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The club's No.3 pick in last year's draft – they rated him No.1 and traded up the board to get him – had shone over the pre-season, he matched it with the big boys of Carlton's midfield and was a favourite for the Telstra AFL Rising Star. Every draftee is hungry to play straight away and feels ready, but Smith was a lock whose fast feet, sharp brain and point of difference was going to energise the Blues' on-ball mix. Then, in an instant, it was over.

Jagga Smith is presented his Carlton jumper by Lance Whitnall during the AFL Draft at Marvel Stadium, November 20, 2024. Picture: AFL Photos

He has recently re-started running again and is doing six-to-seven kilometres three times a week. His mindset has shifted to getting back, but the disappointment lingered after a moment that seemed so little ended up meaning so much.

"I was playing a high half-forward role with little spurts on-ball. They were managing my time on ground to be about 60 per cent during that first game. It was just so exciting playing in front of a crowd. It was 35 degrees, it was hot, and I loved everything about putting on the Carlton jumper. Not that it was a real AFL game but feeling the sense of you're playing for the club," he said.

"It was a weird one, really. You can't see a lot in the footage, there's not too many great angles there. I was playing inside mid late in the third quarter and the ball went up at a stoppage. I went to grab the ball and turned and my leg just got stuck in a way on Jack Macrae. I just heard a little something. It was like a little twist or click.

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"I didn't think anything of it, I've never been injured in my life and I thought I'd jarred my knee or something. I continued trying to go but I just couldn't, it just felt weak. Then at three-quarter time I was doing a few run-throughs, and I thought everything was fine but they said, 'We'll put you on ice'. But there was no sense of the ACL. There was no pain other than that two seconds when I did it.

"The initial assessment was, 'We think you're OK', which I was happy with and I was just thinking, 'Will I be right to fly up to Canberra to play in the praccy game next week? It's a five or six-day turnaround, will I be right for that?'. They said they'd get me a scan the next day just in case and it all went from there."

The knee injury didn't register too much concern post-game. Sam Docherty, who has undergone three knee reconstructions, texted Smith that evening asking if he "felt something" when it happened. Smith recognised a similar feeling, but wasn't jumping on Google for any online diagnosis.

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"I just didn't think it was my ACL. That didn't even pop into my head," he said. "The sleep that night was terrible and not because I was worried about what it was, but the swelling had started to rise. I knew there was something there then."

The next day he went with dad Mick to get scans at Box Hill hospital.

"Dad and I drove there and we were just jokingly saying, 'At least it's not an ACL', as we thought there was no way it could've been that. I got the scan and we walked out of it, and 10 minutes later the head physio Dan James called me and said, 'Is anyone with you in the car? You might need someone with you here' and I said, 'Yeah, yeah. What's wrong?' He said, 'It is the ACL'. It's not even sadness really. It's just shock and it doesn't sink in.

Jagga Smith with family during the AFL Draft at Marvel Stadium, November 20, 2024. Picture: AFL Photos

"Dad was driving and we were 20 minutes off home and the tears start because the realisation sets in that this is my whole year done. It was probably the toughest day of my life, I'd say. People were great with the support, they're amazing, but nothing that anyone can say can fix the way you're feeling. That's just the reality of it. I can't even remember how I got through that day, but I did."

The messages came from everywhere. Every Carlton teammate, of course, reached out, but there were many others. Melbourne's Christian Petracca, Brisbane's Will Ashcroft and Geelong's Bailey Smith all got in contact, having each overcome ACL injuries early in their careers. Like Smith, Petracca's happened just ahead of his AFL debut months after being a top-three pick. NBA superstar Josh Giddey also sent through a message of support.

"That was pretty cool. That was pretty early and he just said, 'I hope everything's all good' in my Instagram so that got me happy for a little bit which was really nice," said the 19-year-old.

Smith has hit all the markers for his recent step up in recovery – the calf and leg presses and extensions in the gym – and is using his time on the sidelines to get better in other ways. Always likely to be a midfielder of a lean build, he wants to put on size through his legs, hips, core and upper body to be ready to compete with all types of midfielders.

He sits in on Sam Walsh's match edits after each game to try and learn from game vision and also better understand Carlton's game plan, and he wants to be even cleaner around the ball. Already a strength being a 'one-touch' player, Smith is keen to get better.

Jagga Smith during the match simulation between Carlton and St Kilda at Ikon Park on February 22, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos

"The knee injury can't stop me from touching the footy. I've got to take it to another level, it gets quicker in the AFL," he said.

He goes to every Carlton game in Melbourne, has travelled with the team a couple of times and has been helping as an assistant coach with Scotch College's First XVIII team, assisting their midfield on Saturdays. Having missed one game in his life through injury before this year with a corked quad – "I just naively thought my body didn't get injured," he said – watching the Blues has been hard.

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"It's not easy because the outcome is just not in your control. You're just like a fan barracking. It's tough to watch early on. I feel like that should be me playing out there. As it goes you get used to it and used to watching us out there," he said.

Part of the challenge is that it feels like an extra wait for Smith, who graduated year 12 at Scotch at the end of 2023 and was living a semi-pro life as a draftee last season ahead of the draft. But his renowned footy appetite has not been dulled.

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"I do think about that one a little bit. I was out of school all year in 2024 and I thought I was half-ready to get into the system. Not fully ready, but I thought I was half-ready to be on a list and training full-time," he said.

"The way I'm looking at it is I'm going to have done three AFL pre-seasons before I play footy again. I trained all summer last year, I'm going to be training all winter this year and then I'm going to have another summer again. That's the way that I've put it in my brain.

"I'll never take for granted little things in my life. I'll never take for granted training sessions and, it's funny to say, but I'll never take for granted doing a running session and running 200s. At the time it sucks but this time has just given me an appreciation for how I just miss everything about footy.

"When I'm starting to miss out and I feel like I'm missing playing on the 'G or little things, then I'll always think to myself my time will come. This is just a chapter in the story."

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