THE bare facts from another extremely disappointing, fleeting return to playing for Newcastle Falcons is that I have a torn medial ligament in my right knee and will be out of action for an expected four to eight weeks. I know some people will immediately start thinking about what that means regarding the autumn international season. I guess it does not augur well, but, to be honest, thoughts of England are miles away.
I’ve gone past the stage of asking “why me?”, “why does it always happen?”. I’m at the stage now where I get injured and immediately tune into what I’ve got to do next. I’ve started to come to terms with my situation, I accept the injuries more quickly and, rather than wasting mental energy feeling frustrated, I’m instead thinking: “What I can do to cut down the rehab time?”
The injury is exactly the same as the old knee injury except it’s the right knee this time. I had a scan on Saturday morning, the morning after the match the night before against Worcester, and got the results that same afternoon. It’s a grade-two partial medial ligament tear. It took me nine weeks to come back from the last one, although that was because there was no game on the eighth weekend afterwards.
The exact nature of the incident was simply unlucky. I’d taken a pass, got hit from the side and was on the ground. There was then a collision around me, Andy Buist fell and unfortunately his entire body weight landed on the outside of my knee. I’m not sure how many other people’s knees would stand up to the weight of someone as big as him.
I heard quite a rigorous pop, a noise I recognised from when I’d injured my left knee. When I stood up, I had that same loose feeling around the joint, so I knew pretty much immediately what had happened. I knew I couldn’t play on, I was just keen to get off the field and get it iced.
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The disappointment is that, again, I don’t feel I’ve really had a chance to play again. I feel I’ve worked really hard in many ways in the past three years in terms of rebuilding and rehab-ing parts of my body and in terms of the mental turnaround I have made and my mental preparation. It’s been a life-changing experience.
All I’m asking for in return is the opportunity to play some rugby for a while — just a few games to get the chance to get my game back to where I believe it should be. It remains the case that there is no chronic problem or weakness in all this. I’m not unfit, there’s no recurring injury. I still believe it is just bad luck.
And I was really enjoying the start to the season. The pace of that Northampton game had been a bit of a shock but I felt good for almost that entire match. And in the Worcester game on Friday, again, I was enjoying having the ball and working under pressure.
I’d struggled to practise much before the Worcester game because I’d had a problem with my groin towards the end of the Northampton match the weekend before. That’s something I’ve had to watch — the torn adductor muscle that hadn’t healed so well last season.
So this is the frustrating part of it all: you know that the adductor is something to watch, you manage that part of your body pretty well, nurse it through the start of the season and then something completely different goes. Regarding England and the autumn internationals, I’m back in the eternal race against time again and if I can’t come back and play pretty quick, then England-wise it all pretty much stinks.
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Obviously, I still like the idea of playing for England again, but I really don’t focus on it now. My aim, actually, is not to think about any grander ambitions and just to focus on playing a few consecutive games.