Just over three months ago, Oscar Steene’s memory of 2026 changed forever.

Before he took the field for a Round 10 clash with Sydney, things were ever increasingly going swimmingly.

He’d debuted seven weeks prior – instantly becoming a fan favourite for Pies supporters on the back of a one-goal, 20-hit-out debut display against GWS, with his form barely wavered during his maiden stint in the team.

But when his knee buckled as he prepared to out mark Brodie Grundy on the SCG wing in mid-May – a man whose departure from the Pies in 2022 opened up a hole in the Club’s ruck stocks that Steene would fill only months later – every footballer’s worst nightmare became a reality for him.

It was a cruel blow. Three full AFL seasons had passed during the tall’s time on the list before he eventually got his chance at the top level in Round 3, with injuries already playing a bigger role in his story than he’d like.

And as he returned to Melbourne after that Friday night clash against the Swans, he’d already come to terms with the fact his next 12 months wouldn’t allow him to add to his tally. A few months have passed since, with significant progress realised in that time; tangible outcomes that are keeping the 23-year-old’s spirits high in the depths of rehab.

“It's tracking well. We're going at a good pace at the moment,” he said.

“The first month is just about pretty much getting your knee straight and walking normally and the months since then have just been about strengthening my left leg.

“I’m strengthening it and getting my quad back to a good size, building some muscle and we're currently in the phase of trying to run.

“I'm doing some tests to test my quad strength, my calf strength and once I hit those metrics I'll be able to run, which is pretty exciting.”

Long-term rehab is a place Steene is all-too familiar with, after his 2024 campaign was halted after just one VFL game due to a foot injury.

He was in just his second year on the list then and still coming to terms with the demands of full-time life in the system, having arrived via the Supplemental Selection Period at the start of 2023.

While this injury is no doubt more arduous, with progress painfully slow, Steene has been buoyed by feeling more comfortable with the process, having taken learnings from his significant time on the sidelines two seasons ago.

“In my second year I had a pretty rare foot injury that kept me out for most of the year,” he said.

“The ACL, it's obviously a little bit worse in the terms of severity, but I think maybe I wouldn't say I’m used to rehab, but I know how to go about it a bit better. I know how to keep myself busy and involved in footy, which helps the headspace a bit more.

“Lucky for me we've got a great rehab team at Collingwood led by Victor Nguyen and our physio Tom Purcell, they lay everything out for you and they make your days so easy.

“Probably the hardest part is you have to get used to doing the same thing every day, like you're using the same weight machines, you're doing the same exercises.

“Once you get past that first phase of the two weeks when you're in bed and you get back into the gym, you'll make progress that you can see which is satisfying, but it is mentally tough doing the same thing over and over again every day.”

Taking the positives out of an unfortunate situation has been a big theme for Steene, and it’s been made even easier by having two teammates in the exact same scenario as him.

Steene’s knee injury was sandwiched between Reef McInnes’ ACL rupture a couple of weeks earlier and Jamie Elliott’s the week after his own in the Club’s historic SP433 fixture, meaning he quickly found himself company.

While there’s no doubt all three would much rather not have their knees to worry about, they’ve been able to make life significantly easier for each by forming their own rehab trio.

“It’s been great. I think even though we're all in a bad circumstance, we'd all agree that it's a lot better doing it with your mates than by yourself,” Steene said.

“They’ve definitely become some of my closer mates at the Club over the experience and also just learning from them, they're both experienced players.

“Reef, obviously this is the second ACL for him, so he's been great for me. He knows how to rehab it so well and he’s so professional and he also just brings a lot of energy when you're up there early in the morning and you don't want to do your rehab, which just puts a smile on your face.

“Jamie he's been so good, the way he goes about it, he's one of the most professional people I've met. He's so meticulous with his with his rehab. He knows his body so well and it's just been great. I couldn't see myself doing it without them.”

With his schedule giving him a lot of free time now, Steene has been keeping himself busy.

He’s a founding member of the playing group’s small but connected Book Club – with Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief the current read – while he’s also in the process of constructing a guitar from scratch, supplying content for his family’s Instagram page that’s following his ACL journey (shoutout @steeneys.rehab.21), and polishing off more subjects for his commerce degree than he otherwise would.

“I’m still doing uni, so I'm studying commerce at the moment and I'll try and pick up a few more units because I'm enjoying it,” he said.

“I've got the rehab page. Mum runs it, I send her the videos which is good. Mum had the idea of creating this Instagram page, just about documenting the journey, and I think it’s good for me and it's good for the family as well and hopefully it'll be something cool to look back on.

“The Club has a Book Club, which is good fun … I actually need I need to pick up the pace because we're catching up next Tuesday and I've only read 80 pages.

“We’ve got Darcy Moore, Ed Allan, Ned Long, Harvey Harrison, a few more boys. It's a good group and something to talk about outside of footy it as well, so we catch up for dinner, talk about the books.

“And then I'm also assembling a guitar at the moment. So I've just bought all the parts that I've been researching and hopefully over the next week or two I'll just assemble that because you’ve got to keep yourself busy.”

Steene is certainly doing just that. With a mature head on his shoulders, the sky is the limit for the South Australian whose aim is to come back bigger and better in 2027.

While it was only a sample size, his two months at AFL level showed the football world, and himself, it was where he belonged.

Buoyed by the new ruck rules – supporting his penchant for leaping high and palming down to his rovers – the mix of himself, Nick Daicos, Allan and Long in the centre of the ground has the future looking bright.

So while he’s firmly focussed on taking the little steps to get his knee back to full health, Steene knows this is just a blip in his career. Now with experience playing alongside some of his heroes, as well as his closest teammates who he has toiled away with in the VFL, the big man is eager to get back on the park in the new year.

“I've had a lot of time to reflect on it. I'm just grateful for those eight games that I played, that was so much fun,” he said.

"It was great after a lot of years in the VFL to play with some of the guys who I look up to like Sidey, Pendles, and Howie.

“Then there were a lot of younger guys who I got to play with, like Ed Allan, Ned Long, who I spent a lot of time with in the VFL, and it was so much fun to play at the top level with them.

“Just building my body up, putting some more kilograms on and just becoming overall stronger will hopefully make me more durable, which will be great.”