The 25-year old went down early in the game, but didn’t realise the seriousness of the incident until after the final siren.
“It was a fifty-fifty ball and I ran to pick it up and an opposition player’s shin connected with my ankle and I did a bit of damage unfortunately,” Pedersen recounted to kangaroos.com.au.
“I was hobbling around a little bit and just thought it was a bit of a stinger or just a bit of a rolled ankle, but it got worse and worse during the game.”
Not wanting to give in to the pain, he played on.
“It happened early in the second quarter and I played the rest of the game. I’ve never had a jab before so stayed away from having to have one and just played through.”
When his lower leg swelled so much, that it made it it near impossible to remove his boot, Pedersen knew his chances of playing the following week were slim at best.
What followed was plenty of treatment at the expense of sleep.
“A lot of icing. Every hour for the first three days for twenty minutes, which is a lot of fun,” he said sarcastically.
“You don’t get much sleep but it definitely helps. I’ve had Josh (Tidswell) at the club doing physio on it too which has been great.”
So, Werribee will be without its part forward, sometimes backman and second ruck, but not for long.
“I’ll be back next week. If we had a longer break I would have tried to get back this week but a six-day break was just too quick a turnaround for me.
“It’s disappointing but I know I’ll be right for week one of the finals next week which is a positive I can take out of it.”
