Kera Galaminda Gellar: Knee deep in the fight
18/08/2026
For Kera Galaminda Gellar, getting back onto a football field was about much more than recovering from a knee injury.
It was about rebuilding her strength, rediscovering her confidence and, at times, convincing herself that she still belonged in the game she had grown to love. The Northern Territory product had only recently begun making her mark in football when a devastating knee injury brought her progress to a sudden halt.
Playing half-back, Galaminda Gellar went up for a mark and landed awkwardly, putting all her weight through her left leg.
There was a massive pop. Initially, she didn’t fully understand what had happened.
“I didn’t know the signs and symptoms of an ACL injury, so I didn’t really think about it for a while,” Galaminda Gellar said.
That changed when her physio explained the extent of the damage. Then came an appointment with her surgeon, where she learned the injury was considerably more serious than she had imagined.
“He goes, ‘Oh my, you just wanted to do the lot, didn’t you?’” Galaminda Gellar recalled.
“The lot” meant a fracture, a damaged meniscus, and tears to her ACL, LCL and PCL.
Suddenly, football was replaced by rehabilitation. The expected recovery time was nine to 12 months. For Galaminda Gellar, it ultimately stretched to around 15 months.
The physical challenge was obvious. After surgery, even simple everyday tasks became difficult, while the fitness and strength she had worked so hard to build disappeared quickly.
“It made me realise how fast you can lose your fitness and strength, and then how long it can take to build up your fitness and strength,” she said.
“Not being able to do simple everyday tasks by yourself, especially after surgery, just really put me on edge. I just really wanted to do things by myself at times.”
But the mental challenge was perhaps even harder. Galaminda Gellar found herself lying awake at night thinking about the injury, wondering whether she could have prevented it and replaying what had happened.
“There were times where I didn’t really have a really good sleep schedule, because all I could think about at night was the past and what I could have done differently to prevent this injury,” she said.
Then there was the hardest part of all: Watching others do what she desperately wanted to be doing herself.
“Watching the girls play and train whilst being on the sideline, wishing I could be out there… it was hard,” she said.
There were moments when the length of the rehabilitation made Galaminda Gellar question whether she would ever return to football at the same level.
She even wondered whether she might lose the love for the sport that had taken her from South Goulburn Island in the Northern Territory to Melbourne. That possibility was particularly difficult given how unexpectedly football had entered her life.
Galaminda Gellar moved to Melbourne for school in 2018 and initially saw herself as more of a basketballer. She had also played soccer growing up, but football was a new experience. A clinic at St Leonard’s Brighton Beach Junior Football Club changed that.
“I went and tried the footy clinic, and I was like, ‘Oh, I actually do like this, it’s fun, I’m good at it,’” she says.
Her progression was rapid, taking her through junior football, the SANFL Next Generation Academy and eventually the Sandringham Dragons. But after the knee injury, simply being around football became an important part of getting back to it.
Galaminda Gellar continued turning up to Dragons training throughout her rehabilitation, helping wherever she could. Once she was able to run again, she began assisting with simple drills, handball and kicking exercises.
She watched games from the sidelines and supported her teammates, even when she desperately wanted to be out there herself. It was a way of remaining connected to the sport while her body caught up.
Her support network also proved critical. Galaminda Gellar credits her homestay family, her parents and sister, Sandringham Dragons coach Martha Cantwell and the team at Foundry Athletic with helping her navigate the long recovery.
“I don’t think I could have done it by myself,” she said.
Eventually, after 15 months, Galaminda Gellar got the chance to feel like a footballer again.
Her first game back came late in 2025 with the Sandringham Dragons. Rather than immediately returning for a full match, she spent just 10 minutes on the field, allowing herself to rediscover what it felt like to play football.
The small taste of game time was followed by several full games, including one where she kicked three goals. It was proof that the long rehabilitation was beginning to pay off.
But the return wasn’t an overnight transformation. Galaminda Gellar admits she’s still waiting for the opportunity to fully prove herself again. After such a long absence, she’s had limited experience at the elite level and knows she still has plenty to learn.
“I guess I’m still waiting for the opportunity to fully prove myself again,” she said.
“I haven’t had many games to showcase my talent, and I just don’t have enough game experience at this level yet. So, I'm still waiting on that with time.”
That opportunity arrived this season when Galaminda Gellar earned her first VFLW contract with the Sandringham Zebras.
After everything she had endured, being selected was a moment worth savouring. Sitting in the meeting room when the team was announced, Galaminda Gellar wasn’t initially paying close attention to the names on the board.
Then someone told her she was debuting.
“I was like, ‘What?’” she recalled.
When she looked at the board and saw her full name, the reality finally hit.
“Oh shoot, yeah, I am. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s real, this is real.’”
Her VFLW debut against Carlton came with nerves and understandable rust. Having played only around five games at the elite level in the previous 18 months, the fact that she was there was significant in itself.
She had gone from sitting on the sidelines, questioning whether she would ever return, to taking the field at VFLW level, and against Geelong, she produced another milestone. Receiving the ball in the pocket, Galaminda Gellar pivoted and found a way to send it through the goals. Afterwards, the significance of what she had just done hit her.
“When I got the ball, I knew I just had to get the ball back into the box, because it came off from the pocket,” she said.
“I just decided to pivot and go the other way around, and just literally kick the ball into the goal,” she said.
It was a small moment compared to the enormity of the journey that had brought her there, but it represented something much bigger.
For someone who spent 15 months watching football from the outside, simply being back in the environment is something Galaminda Gellar no longer takes for granted. The road from South Goulburn Island to Melbourne had already been an unexpected one, but her road back from injury has arguably been the most important journey of all.
There’s still more to prove, and Galaminda Gellar knows it, but after everything she went through to get back on the field, she has no intention of taking the opportunity for granted.
She’s already fought her way back once. Now, she gets to see how far she can go.
Written by Casey McGuire - Sandringham FC Media