\n Daniel Rioli hit the track as soon as he left hospital after having surgery on a broken leg\n <\/p>\n
Daniel Rioli during Gold Coast’s media op at People First Stadium on August 30, 2025. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n
DANIEL Rioli was so desperate to get back for Gold Coast’s finals push, he left surgery for a broken leg and headed straight to the training track to begin rehab by walking laps.<\/p>\n
Rioli suffered the injury in his 200th game against Adelaide in round 19, halting a streak of 93 consecutive games.<\/p>\n
He had two options to address the broken fibula; undergo surgery and hope to get back within four to five weeks or let it heal naturally and likely take six to eight weeks.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old opted for the former, getting back for the Suns’ historic win over Essendon that sealed the club’s first trip to finals in its 15-year history.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of Saturday night’s elimination final against Fremantle, Rioli said it was a “challenging” time to deal with injury.<\/p>\n
“I’m very grateful I’ve taken the four to five weeks (option),” Rioli said.<\/p>\n
“As soon as I got out of surgery I came to the training track to walk laps straight away, with a broken fib.<\/p>\n
“Obviously it’s a hard process in rehab, but the physios were amazing to get me back in time.”<\/p>\n
Daniel Rioli during Gold Coast’s training session at Austworld Centre on August 7, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
Rioli said he and the club never pushed back to return early, saying he was close to playing against Port Adelaide, but opting for the Bombers when he felt “cherry ripe”.<\/p>\n
And his impact was obvious from the get-go. Sprinting through the middle of People First Stadium, Rioli took two bounces and delivered a perfectly weighted pass on to the chest of the leading Ben King for an early goal.<\/p>\n
He finished with 17 disposals, and his own bombed goal from just outside 50m in the perfect return before getting 10 days to prepare for the Dockers.<\/p>\n
With three premierships and 13 finals appearances under his belt, Rioli brings the most experience in September to the untried Suns.<\/p>\n
John Noble (seven finals) and Ben Long (one) are the only teammates to have any post home and away season experience.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rioli, John Noble and Matt Rowell sing the team song after the match between West Coast and Gold Coast at Optus Stadium in round one, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
Rioli said his advice was simple.<\/p>\n
“For me, it’s to enjoy every moment,” he said. “Don\u2019t rush too far ahead.<\/p>\n
“Not too often you get to play finals footy. To reach our first finals appearance is amazing, and the boys are soaking it up and enjoying every minute of it.<\/p>\n
“We don’t take anything for granted because it gets taken away pretty quickly, so soak it all up.<\/p>\n
“We’re excited because it’s our first finals appearance at this football club, but that’s not where we want to finish and be content with. Our ultimate goal is to play on that last Saturday in September.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Rioli hit the track as soon as he left hospital after having surgery on a broken leg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":["post-110104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}