Jack Ziebell has labelled talk of him returning too early from a hamstring injury as “rubbish”.
The North Melbourne captain insists he met all the required medical measures and ticked every box before being declared fit to play against the Tigers.
Ziebell left the field in the first term, three weeks after injuring the same hamstring against Hawthorn.
“Our medicos put together some critical measures that I had to meet at training to be able to play, and I hit those measures for two weeks straight,” Ziebell told North Media.
“I was almost ready to go the week before, but we decided to be cautious and gave it one more week.
“I trained the next week and ticked all the boxes again. I was cleared … double checked and triple checked, but it was just one of those things.”
In the wake of some criticism, Ziebell moved to praise the Roos’ medical team.
“We do strength measures and footy specific stuff as well, and people may not realise the depth that medical teams go,” he explained.
“Top-end speed is one critical measure, and I hit that in the three sessions before the game.
“I feel for those guys (the medical team) as they will unfairly be lumped with a bit of pressure.”
Ziebell’s latest injury will likely see him miss a month of action.
“It’s probably going to be around that four-week mark,” Ziebell said.
“I’ll be doing everything I can to be back as soon as possible.”
And the skipper is confident his teammates will end their five-game losing streak.
“I think that things aren’t too far off turning around,” he said.
“Obviously the weekend was really disappointing, but we’ll learn some lessons off the last few weeks.
“The young guys are getting some exposure, and hopefully we can get some more guys back from injury soon.
“Shawry has been unbelievable the last week or two, keeping the group together. If we keep our heads down and keep working our tails off, things will turn.”
