- Anna Leat’s impressive start to the season with the Newcastle Jets has earned plenty of plaudits, receiving a nomination for the Austraffic PFA Player of the Month for December.
- It’s been a long road back for the New Zealand international, who has had to overcome many obstacles to play professional football again.
- Earlier this season, Leat caught up with pfa.net.au to talk about her road back to professional football.
After a long battle with concussion, Anna Leat is back doing what she loves.
Not only playing football at the highest level, but thriving, showcasing her skills as one of the top goalkeepers in the A-League Women throughout her first season at the Newcastle Jets.
It’s taken months of rehab, plenty of sacrifice and many difficult days, after she sustained the concussion playing for Aston Villa in England’s Women’s Super League.
In her words: it’s been ‘a lot of baby steps’ to get back to where she is now.
“With an injury like that that, it doesn’t really have an end date and that can be quite confronting to wrap your head around and process what football means to me and how much of a part of me and my life that it is,” Leat told pfa.net.au
“I’ve come back with a fresh perspective on my value for the game, and it just feels so good to be back up and running and confident and feeling good, and athletic and brave and all of those things.”
The road back started back in England, before returning home to New Zealand earlier this year after mutually terminating her contract with Villa.
Leat’s return to familiar surroundings at home helped her take important steps forward in her recovery.
“It was something I hadn’t experienced before,” she said.
“At first, I was getting a lot of support from my roommate over in England. She was looking after me and I was just taking things day by day, tracking symptoms, trying to stay off screens, trying to stay mentally relaxed and obviously not doing anything physically.
“But over time, it just became clear that it was going to be more of a long haul [recovery] so once I got myself back home, it was getting in to see the right people. New Zealand Football supported me a lot in getting me to see the right doctors.
“I had a team of about 10 different women helping me with all my rehab and all my different bits and bobs because there’s just so much that can be affected.
“It’s those little changes that you need to get back before you can go back into something like professional sport where your body’s on the line and you need to be at 100 per cent functioning in terms of reaction time, your eyes, and your neck and all of those bits.
“Mentally, I think it was good that I went home. It was good that I had people around me. It was still a challenge and anyone who has been concussed will tell you how it can affect you, kind of mentally and emotionally.
“I was grateful through that time for the skills I’d built up in terms of mental fortitude and being able to take a step back and see the bigger picture through those experiences.”
Leat would eventually be cleared to return to playing football locally with Eastern Suburbs.
Her time at Eastern gave her the opportunity to gain important match practise and confidence in her abilities once again following her extended absence.
“I just know now after what I went through over in England that it’s just so important to have the right people around who have the right intention for your long-term wellbeing,” she said.
“It’s one thing to mess up your knee, but your brain is going to be with you forever. And you can’t really get it back – you can’t get a replacement!
“It was a long process, and I think it took a lot of coming to terms with just what was right for me at that period. I came home and my family got around me, and I ended up getting back into the swing of things at Eastern Suburbs.
“They were super supportive and helped build me back up, build up my confidence, help get me some game time, while also training with their boys’ team, and the girls’ team.
“It was an awesome environment for me to get back to that and feeling like myself and into the team environment, which just become such a big part of who you are as a footballer, so that’s the main thing that I missed.”
Concussion in football has been a hot topic in sport for many years, with a greater understanding of the effects of head injuries coming to the fore.
Sporting organisations from different codes across the world have started to implement concussion policies, along with several rules and regulations to ensure the effects of head injuries are mitigated.
The PFA have enacted a number of initiatives on concussion and head trauma themselves for their members, including an expert education program on how to respond to head injuries that’s been developed in collaboration with FIFPRO for A-Leagues players.
The organisation has also partnered with the Concussion Legacy Foundation Australia, whose helpline is available to all PFA members who are struggling with the outcomes of repeated concussions, brain injuries, their lingering symptoms, and help those who are concerned about suspected CTE.
“The education piece has to land on the medical staff,” Leat said.
“I think they need to know exactly when to worry and when not to. You don’t want to just go up for a header and you’re fine and suddenly you must miss a few games.
“But when things are affecting you physically, you need to take that space because it can be serious. Since it’s very case by case, I just think the education around the medical staff, knowing how to treat things, how to react to different symptoms and levels of symptoms is the most important thing.
“The more that concussion education gets out there I think they will take it seriously. It’s a sensitive one because you don’t want to overreact, but you don’t want to under-react.
“It’s case by case and I think the more the more medical professionals are across it, the safer girls will be.”
Leat’s return to top-flight football was complete this off-season, signing with the Jets ahead of the A-League Women off-season and has quickly made an impact, with her performances earning a nomination in the shortlist for the PFA Player of the Month in December.
She also earned a recall to the New Zealand national team and started against the Matildas in Gosford in late November.
“It’s great vibes. It’s such a great group with these girls and Stephen [Hoyle] leading the charge,” Leat said.
“Life in Australia has been good to me. It’s very different to life in England.”
Beyond football, Leat is also studying a degree in psychology, an area she’s always had a strong interest in as she takes on an extra-curricular activity to compliment her on-field career.
“I’m in my first year at university, but it’s been something I’ve always been interested in,” she said.
“Psychology is just a passion of mine, and I feel as though through the things I’ve learned in my own experience and the progress I’ve made in myself; I know that it’s something that can help other people too.
“So, it’s certainly a direction I want to go in, and I’m doing a diploma right now. I finished my study at university for the year; I’m doing a diploma in positive psychology out of Melbourne. So that’s going to be another tool for the toolkit and hopefully help me go down that path.”
Featured image: Imago / Sports Press Photo
