1 hour ago, bing181 said:

Simply not true. Hogan in particular played arguably his best match ever first game back. Tyson had 29 and 30 possessions first 2 games back, amongst his best for the year, Garlett kicked 3 in his first match back and his highest possession game for the year was the week after that, and even Gawn: 42 HO and 15 disposals first game back, and his best game for the year by a long way came in the latter part of the year. 

You see what you want to see and make it fit the story, all the while ignoring the poor games by any/all of these players BEFORE they were injured - not to mention the overall team performance where everyone tailed off in the latter part of the year, injured or not.

The first game back syndrome...

It seems a lot of players can build themselves up for the first game back then drop off and struggle in the next...in all clubs, I've noticed it happen a bit over time.

Not sure why this is.

28 minutes ago, rjay said:

The first game back syndrome...

I only highlighted the first couple of games back from injuries in response to the original poster. All the players mentioned had more or less the same distribution of strong/weak games before and after injuries.