The lonely recovery journey post Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is what inspired Adelaide Comets’ stalwart, Georgie Nicola into a career focused on exercise and sports science.
Around her busy footballing schedule, Georgie has found time to complete her Bachelor of Exercise Science (Sports Science) as well as concurrently completing a Diploma in Remedial Massage at TAFE and running classes at a fitness centre for the over 60s population.
However, Nicola’s overall hope is for her footballing and exercise science worlds to collide:
My major goal is to facilitate rehabilitation for athletes. Having gone through a serious injury like that myself when I was younger, I really want to share my knowledge and own experience to help others get through that injury as well.
When I did mine there wasn’t a lot of young girls going through the same thing or programs targeted just to young girls getting back. It was quite a lonely process as well, being away from your team for so long.”
Georgie also learnt to ply her trade during a placement with Adelaide United, with the hands-on experience furthering her desire to work with athletes at the highest level:
My placement with Adelaide United really opened my eyes. I got to work with the youth team and see what they went through, and a few times I was invited to look at the first team and it was astonishing how different it was in terms of how much more fine-tuned it is for the men.”
Drawing on her own rehabilitation experience, Nicola would also love to have the opportunity to run her own rehabilitation facility where athletes could be amongst others who are experiencing a similar journey:
To have a place where a group of people meet, where you can go and see people you know, people who are at the same level as you and you’re going through it together would be great. Because you spend a lot of time away from your team”.
After hitting her 100-game milestone last season, Georgie is a pivotal part of the Comets’ leadership group, hoping to guide the 2023 squad to again break club records after reaching finals for the first-time last season:
The leadership group is a good mixture of youth and senior players. We have someone from each area of the park: forwards, midfielders, fullbacks, centre, goalkeepers, so that there is someone that everyone in the squad can relate to in one of the leaders.”
Nicola doesn’t just get the most out of her team on the pitch, she also ensures that the women are primed to perform at their best during trainings and the off-season:
I’m helping with the girls at my club; facilitating exercise programs and taking them through different drills. I do a lot of prehab with them, making sure to increase their longevity and focusing on injury prevention.”
Anyone who has watched the Comets squad would know of the potency of its dual strike attack, with Georgie working in complete sync with Chrissy Panagaris, frequently interchanging between the 9 and 10 positions on almost a telepathic level:
I think it helps that we are friends, so we just want to do well for each other. I like seeing her score and setting her up, it’s rewarding both ways. I get equally as excited if I score or if I set her up. It was great to see her playing for Adelaide United on the weekend. I think we all shed a tear of excitement because we know she’s a great person. It’s also good to see that elite teams like Adelaide United are looking at Comets as well. It’s good for the club and it’s good for Chrissy.”
Georgie is cautiously optimistic about the Comets’ trajectory for the 2023 season, having held onto majority of their squad from last year, promoting Tom Monsigneur to the head coach position, and strong off-season recruitment in Emily Heazlewood, Khal Khan and Siena Covino:
Tom is really good at motivating us, at his tactics, and explaining how he wants things. We have a very young team where everyone’s willing to learn and no one really has an ego. So, even if there is a scenario in a game that may not go our way, we all lift each other up. We’ve kept pretty much 95 percent of our team from last year and now we have more depth that we can go even further than just making finals this year. We had a really long pre-season, we started in October, so I’m confident. It’s just a very unique team where all of us are friends, even the new girls. So, it is like you’re going to training and just hanging out with your friends.”
Adelaide Comets face 2022 Champions, West Adelaide on Saturday 18th for their Round 2 clash, following an opening round 3-0 win against newly promoted, Flinders University to start their 2023 campaign. The Round 2 fixture can be viewed LIVE on both NPLTV and Channel 44 as the Match of the Round feature.
