“At this stage it may just be a double mouthguard, but the doc was going to have a word to the surgeon and get her thoughts on a helmet . . . and if they say I need to wear one I’ll strap it straight on,” Simpson said.
“It’s not an issue for me - I wore one when I was ten I reckon, and I was a ruckman in Under 10s. Mum and Dad wanted me to wear one then and Mum’s pretty keen for me to wear one now. I’ve told her that they’ve done a study into helmets and they don’t actually do anything, but she’s pretty keen for me to put one on.”
Simpson didn’t lose any teeth as the fracture was high on the jawline. But he’s still sporting protective elastic braces to keep his jaw in position, is now awaiting medical advice regarding the helmet “and if I have to wear a helmet I’ll train in it on Saturday to try and get a bit used to it”.
His recovery is in keeping with the surgeon’s four-week (three match) prognosis “and I held her to it”. There was no need for surgery, but braces Simpson still wears were implanted.
Of the collision itself, Simpson recalled seeing Wellingham out the corner of his eye and thinking the player wouldn’t reach him.
“I thought I had him covered and when you’re running towards the boundary line you don’t think there’s too much danger. It’s when you’re running back with the flight towards goal that maybe you get a bit worried.
“I’ve never suffered an injury like that before. I must have got hit in the sweet spot. I’ve since seen it on the replay quite a few times, but lost about 30 seconds of memory when it happened. The bit where I was lying on the ground I don’t remember, but I remember being carried off, going through all the tests and watching the whole game.”
The incident put paid to Simpson’s unbroken run of 158 matches and while he’s disappointed the sequence has ended, he’s philosophical about it all.
“Looking back I’ve been pretty lucky not copping an injury for seven years, so you’ve got to take the good with the bad,” Simpson said.
And he bears no malice to Wellingham. As he said: “He (Wellingham) had a split second and admitted he made the wrong decision. He came up to me after the game and said he didn’t mean it and there’s no hard feelings from my end”.
While “Simmo” can’t say what will happen when the first loose ball comes his way Sunday, the little big man in the No.6 guernsey believes he’s already cleared a psychological hurdle by completing Thursday’s solid training session at Visy Park.
“Hopefully I’ve got a bit of confidence out of getting a few knocks on it. There were a few tackles laid at training, obviously not with the same intensity as in a game, but I’ll worry about all that on gameday and hopefully when I step over that white line on Sunday white line fever will kick in and I won’t have to worry about it”
Simpson collects his new mouthguard on Friday, and has always advocated wearing a mouthguard. As he said: “Mum and Dad pumped about two or three grand into my teeth when I was younger and I’ve always worn one because I know they’d kill me if I lost any teeth”.
For the 171-game Carlton warrior on the comeback, timing is everything and as he said of the run home, “every game from hereon in is massive”.
