Why AFL star Stephen Coniglio is swearing by Botox injections after finding out one of the biggest names in the game swears by them
Fremantle midfielder Fyfe - who is no stranger to injury setbacks across his AFL career - heard from Dockers teammate Jaeger O'Meara that Coniglio was desperately searching for answers when it came to an issue with the nerves in his buttock.
Nothing seemed to aid Coniglio's recovery, be it cortisone injections, acupuncture or advice from medical experts overseas.
So Fyfe texted the Giants legend and suggested Botox in a bid to get him back chasing a Sherrin.
Coniglio was all ears - and he returned in GWS' 48-point win over Essendon at Marvel Stadium on July 17, finishing with 18 disposals.
'Footy works in funny ways sometimes. Nat (Fyfe) messaged me and said to potentially look at a Botox procedure. Telling your wife you're having a Botox injection in your backside is funny,' Coniglio told AFL.com.au
'(GWS' head of performance health) Matt Cameron also spoke to a few people at Fremantle about Nat's experience. We ended up going down that route and finding someone who would do it in Sydney.
'I was happy to try anything. After seven days I could still feel the sharp neural pain when I ran, but after 10 days I couldn't feel a thing. It has worked.'
Meanwhile, the Giants are currently in sixth spot on the ladder with 48 points as they try to shore up a spot in the finals, but only trail Geelong (fourth) and Hawthorn (fifth) on percentages.
A blockbuster on home soil awaits on Friday night against the Swans, who appear to have finally clicked into gear this season.
Coniglio has been with the Giants since their inception in 2012, and watched on injured as his team lost the 2019 grand final.
At 31, he knows opportunities to win a flag are fading - which is why he can't thank Fyfe enough for his medical suggestion.
'(With the glute injury) I was worried about when I was going to be able to run freely, or even play again,' he said.
'I couldn't see the light, so it was incredibly frustrating, especially after my (other) injuries in the second half of last year.'
Away from footy, the father of two launched 'Coffee with Cogs' on YouTube and Apple podcasts in June.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Caroline Wozniacki announces major personal news one year on from ex Rory McIlroy's divorce drama
Caroline Wozniacki has welcomed her third child with retired NBA forward and husband David Lee, the tennis star has announced. Wozniacki, 35, shared the heartwarming news on Instagram three months after revealing that she and Lee, 42, were expecting another baby. The loved-up couple, who tied the knot back in June 2019 after getting engaged two years earlier, already have a three-year-old daughter, Olivia, and a two-year-old son, James. And the former Australian Open champion announced Saturday that they have expanded their family again following the birth of son Max. Alongside an adorable photo of her two other children holding the newborn baby in their arms, Wozniacki wrote on Instagram: 'Max Wozniacki Lee, born July 26, 2025! Mom and baby are healthy and our family couldnt be happier!' Wozniacki's latest child with Lee, a former NBA All-Star power forward who played for the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors amongst others, comes almost a year on from ex-fiance Rory McIlroy 's shocking divorce drama. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Caroline Wozniacki (@carowozniacki) McIlroy was in a relationship with the Grand Slam winner for three years before dramatically breaking off their engagement in 2014 after admitting he was not ready for marriage. Three years later he did tie the knot with current wife Erica Stoll. Last year, however, the five-time major champion filed to divorce Stoll after serving her with papers at their home in Florida, only to U-turn on that proposal less than a month later. Rumors suggested that McIlroy had been having some form of a relationship with CBS Sports' Amanda Balionis while they were both out on tour. None of these rumors have been proven and neither Balionis nor McIlroy have outright addressed them. By June, less than a full month after Stoll was served, the filing was withdrawn and the couple have remained together. A sporting super-couple, McIlroy and Wozniacki were together between 2011 and 2013 before he ended the relationship when he said he was not ready for marriage. The duo had sent out wedding invitations after a New Year's Eve proposal in Sydney and Wozniacki posted: 'Happy New Year everyone! Rory and I started 2014 with a bang! I said YES!!!!' But only months later, McIlroy changed his mind. At the time, he put out a statement, reading: 'There is no right way to end a relationship that has been so important to two people. 'The problem is mine. The wedding invitations issued at the weekend made me realise that I wasn't ready for all that marriage entails. 'I wish Caroline all the happiness she deserves and thank her for the great times we've had. I will not be saying anything more about our relationship in any setting.' Wozniacki has since admitted to being stunned at the way in which the break-up was handled. She previously told Graham Bensinger: 'I was shocked. I thought at least I would get a face-to-face or something, but there was nothing. It was a phone call, and I did not hear from him again. It kind of just ended.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Gold Coast standard: Suns finally look like they belong with the AFL's big boys
Temperamentally, it's hard to imagine two more different footballers than Jeremy Cameron and Matt Rowell. Cameron kicked 11 goals on the weekend, and slotted each one with the same laconic air as when he's whacking golf balls into the lake on his farm. Rowell had 37 possessions, most of which were earned in a footballing form of hand-to-hand-combat. Rowell met considerably stiffer opposition than Cameron, whose bag came against a lamentable North Melbourne, a team that is driving its fans to despair. Rowell's 37 came against a crack midfield, with one of the sport's best two-way runners in his back pocket all afternoon. Rowell's motor often takes half a quarter or so to properly turn over. And Josh Dunkley, who has blanketed him in recent meetings, seemed to have his measure in the early minutes of the Queensland derby. He was doing all the right things – bumping him off balance, blocking him at stoppages and involving himself in possession chains. But in horseracing parlances, this was run on a Heavy 9 and Rowell is built for those conditions. He's low slung, incredibly strong through the glutes and legs, and excellent at holding his centre of gravity. Scrimmaging on his hands and knees – one of the more exhausting things you can do on a football field – he'll shovel out the handball at the fourth or fifth effort. For such a brute of a footballer, he also has fast feet and a recurring sight all afternoon was of him giving Dunkley the slip at stoppages – sometimes with twinkle toes, sometimes just sledgehammering his way out. It's impossible to write about Rowell and not mention Noah Anderson. The best friends are polar opposites as footballers. One pursues the ball in an almost demented manner. The other glides and slaloms his way through congestion. Anderson took a while to adapt to Damien Hardwick's ways. But he has been exceptional this year, and would be a worthy Brownlow medallist and All Australian captain. In a recent profile on the AFL website, three people who coach and work with him compared him to Scott Pendlebury. Words like 'calm' and 'unfazed' were peppered throughout the article. It's a shame he and Rowell aren't playing in front of 80,000 people every other week. But they drew their marbles, went where they were told and have made Gold Coast a serious football team. There are several things that stand out about the Suns. The first is how much they resemble Hardwick's great Richmond side just as it was about to pop – the frantic, raus raus football, the determination to attack from half back in great sweeping waves. Like Richmond's Tigers, and unlike any Suns side in its first dozen years, they don't drop their bundle following a bad loss. And there's finally a bit of mongrel about them, an attitude that GWS had right from the beginning but which the Suns failed to cultivate. A lot of them, including Rowell and ruckman Jarrod Witts, are prepared to do the dirty work, allowing thoroughbreds like Anderson the full expression of his game. Like Melbourne, they wined and dined all the prominent media figures in February. All the big movers and shakers were there – the president, the CEO, the coach, Anderson, Rowell and a lot of the best players. They were selling their story. They were asking for a fair ride from the media. And underpinning everything was a steely resolve that they weren't going to roll over for anyone anymore. Sign up to From the Pocket: AFL Weekly Jonathan Horn brings expert analysis on the week's biggest AFL stories after newsletter promotion Yeah yeah, most probably thought, thanks for the dinner but we've heard it all before. After all, this is the time of year where the Suns traditionally fall in a heap. In the last seven games of a season, they've never won more than three of them. They had a poor recent record against Brisbane, they were towelled up by Adelaide last week and they were without Daniel Rioli and Touk Miller. But they took on a premiership midfield, a midfield with depth and variety and talent to burn, and they obliterated them. Their 12th win is the most they've registered in a season. At the final break, in teeming rain, coach and players were squeezed in tight and grinning broadly. I'll take a stab and suggest Hardwick was saying something along the lines of 'How good is this?' and 'we finally belong with the big boys'. A final word on Rowell and Anderson. There's a photograph of them with Nick Daicos in the same school team in 2019. Pity the poor VCE students, concerned mainly with their studies, their social lives and playing a bit of footy on a Saturday, who had to try and quell that trio. The poor buggers should get a spot in the motorcade on grand final day.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Changed my life': hepatitis treatment offers hope but not enough receiving care, report finds
In 1989 David Clune was a young dad with four children when he was diagnosed with hepatitis B and C. Being told he wouldn't get to see them grow up 'was like a spear went through my heart', he remembers. Clune is not sure how he contracted the virus. However, entering state care in New Zealand at the age of 10, he experienced abuse and neglect as he was cycled through eight different homes, three youth detention centres, one adult remand centre and a psychiatric hospital, and was exposed to shared needles for tattooing and drugs. Clune quit drugs when he was 17 after meeting his long-term partner Grace and focused on their young family and working in a farming community. But life in the community became untenable after the stigma of Clune's diagnosis came at the same time as the Aids epidemic. 'They didn't have the understanding as they do now. It was that horrific that the children that used to play with my children in the community were no longer allowed to.' Clune progressively became sicker. 'I was a dying young dad – my organs were all failing, my kidney, my liver, my heart was under stress, everything. I was in really bad shape.' Sign up: AU Breaking News email In 1992, in the face of stigma, Clune's family emigrated to Brisbane with only $180. When he got to Australia his doctor referred him to the hepatology unit at Princess Alexandria hospital. 'Those guys changed my life,' he says. 'They knew what I'd been through and they built my trust. And when they built my trust, they built my health.' Clune is among the 300,000 people in Australia who live with hepatitis B and hepatitis C – viruses that affect the liver and which, without treatment, can lead to liver disease and liver cancer. For Clune and others, life has become significantly better now there is a cure for hepatitis C and treatment for hepatitis B, but a new report shows many people aren't receiving this care because they don't realise they are at risk or are disconnected from care. Released by Hepatitis Australia on Monday, it shows how hepatitis of all types is distributed among a typical 100 people affected. It concludes that 69 of those 100 people are living with hepatitis B, which is overwhelmingly the most prevalent blood-borne virus in Australia. The remaining 24 are living with hepatitis C, four are living with both hepatitis B and D, and three are living with hepatitis B and hepatitis C. However, only one in three people living with hepatitis B know they have it, and more than half are not receiving the care they need to appropriately monitor their liver health and viral load, and determine if and when antiviral treatment should commence, the report found. Most people (70 out of 100) with hepatitis B were born overseas, according to the report, titled 'If hepatitis was 100 people'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'While people born in Australia since the year 2000 (when hepatitis B vaccinations began being routinely offered) are protected, people born before then, or those born overseas could be living with the virus and not know it because the symptoms often aren't obvious until the liver is severely damaged,' Lucy Clynes, the chief executive of Hepatitis Australia, said. The number of people living with hepatitis C has more than halved since 2016 when unrestricted access to direct-acting antiviral cures became available, but the uptake of the cure has declined 'significantly' since then, the report found. Stigma and discrimination associated with injecting drug use remains a barrier for all people living with hepatitis C in accessing treatment, the report stated. Out of 100 people with hepatitis C, 84 no longer inject drugs or contracted the disease in other ways. Clynes said the work to ensure people who inject drugs are receiving the cure has been effective, 'which is why we're seeing a change in the population'. The people who contracted hepatitis C in other ways – which could be unsafe tattooing, receiving a blood transfusion before 1990 (when screening was introduced) or getting a medical or dental procedure in a country with poor blood safety regulations, are less likely to be interacting with medical services, Clynes said. The report says population-wide testing should be carried out urgently, along with targeted education, and culturally safe care pathways – otherwise Australia will not meet its commitment to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030, in line with global WHO targets.
