GEELONG veteran Harry Taylor says he’s turned to Eagles star Josh Kennedy for advice as he continues to deal with ongoing foot issues.

Taylor is currently dealing with the effects of plantar fascia issues, something that drastically restricted Kennedy’s 2012 season.

The pair played junior football together in country Western Australia and Taylor said he had connected with Kennedy over his injuries.

Finals Week 1

“We actually played a lot of junior footy together, under 10s and 12s for Northampton, a small country town there, and we;ve been bouncing a few ideas off each other on occasions — he’s had a wretched run with injury this year in particular,” Taylor said on Fox Sports News’ AFL Tonight.

“And it’s just unfortunate to see some of the great players like himself, Nic Naitanui, not being able to contribute as much as they’d love.

“Hopefully Josh can come back and have a big impact later in the season for West Coast because I love watching him play.

“He’s a pretty tough opponent to actually play on but I just love watching him go about it because I think he’s one of the best forwards in the comp.”

Taylor said he and Kennedy had bounced ideas off each other as the Cat dealt with his injuries.

He said the Eagle’s support had been “fantastic” in regards to his approach to the injury.

“We’ve bounced a few ideas off each other, he’s had a few foot problems in his career along a similar lines to me,” Taylor said.

“So it’s just good to do as much research and get as much evidence-based research as possible and his case ... I’ve been fortunate enough to get some information out of him in regards to how his recovery went and that’s certainly helped shape some of the things that I’ve done.

“So I’m certainly a big fan of him and I guess that love and support that he’s given me has been fantastic so far.”

Taylor said his recent injury progress had been “pretty positive” after a number of difficult weeks.

“I was battling a bit there for a while but the last few days have been pretty positive,” he said.

“I’ve started doing some running and moving around, kicking the footy again and UI guess all of those things make you feel a lot better mentally and physically I’m tracking in the right direction, so that’s good news from my point of view anyway.”

Taylor said he would now look to build up the loading of his foot in a bid to return to play later in the season.

“Not entirely sure at this stage, just got to build up the loads now,” he said.

“So I’ve gone through that period of rest and recuperation for my foot and now it’s a matter of just increasing the loads in terms of how far I run and how fast I run. Change of direction’s also something that we have to do agility-wise.

“Once I can start to tick a few of those things off, then the question becomes of how much I’ve done and how much more I need to do and whether I need to play some VFL footy or whether I can come into the AFL side.

“And when you get to that point, it’s pretty exciting, because for me, playing footy’s something I love doing and unfortunately I just haven’t been able to do it enough this season.”

Taylor said he hoped to be back in time for the Cats’ finals campaign.

“Hopefully I keep tracking in a positive manner but I certainly haven’t given up hope of playing some footy in the home and away season and then hopefully some finals footy, provided my form and my position in the side is warranted,” he said.

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