The 2016 J.A. Esam medallist had copped a knee to the hip in the Power’s round 13 match against Timboon Demons and, while he was sore immediately after the incident, things took a turn for the worse a few days later.

“I ran into big ‘Barney’ (Marcus) Hickey down at Timboon one day and his knee is about the size of my head, and it just connected really well,” Conheady said.

“It was a strange one, actually. I’d just got all my farm work done for the next few days – you’re usually pretty sore after a game – and come Wednesday, instead of getting better it went the other way and it sort of just exploded, and I ended up spending a few nights in hospital.

“That was not quite to plan, that recovery. It was a few weeks – the longer time went, I thought I was going to miss finals altogether.”

But Conheady’s uncle Anthony Mahony put him in touch with Russells Creek trainer Lyal Eales, who helped him get “up and going” in time to return for the Power’s final-round clash with Allansford.

The on-baller says he hasn’t thought about the injury in his past two matches and is keen to throw himself in the thick of the action as the Power tries to get its finals campaign back on track against Nirranda this Sunday.

Kolora-Noorat went down to a Darcy Lewis-inspired Dennington by 38 points in last week’s qualifying final, but took the points in the only encounter between it and the Blues this season.

Back in round seven, the Power made the most of a strong breeze in the first and third terms to set up a 22-point win, but Conheady was expecting a close contest between the two teams in the first semi-final at Merrivale.

“We know Nirranda pretty well. We’ve got quite a bit of feeling between the clubs at the moment, we’ve had a few good tussles over the last two years, so we’ll be certainly coming out to go 100 per cent,” he said.

“We know they’re a hard team, so we’ll be looking to take that a level up.”

Both the Power and the Blues have named unchaged sides for the knockout final.

Nirranda coach Shane Threlfall said his charges were fired up after seeing off 2015 runner-up Merrivale in last Sunday’s elimination final.

“That game gave us a lot of confidence and we were just really rapt to have that win,” he said.

“They just have to bring that again – they know they can do it now.”