The Kneed for Surgery

Having recently suffered from a knee injury and the resultant reconstruction operation, it has brought a new cringe factor to my rugby watching experience.  The past weekend in the Rugby Championship sent a special kind of shiver down my spine, when I saw Bismarck lying on the field I *knew* what he’d done and I wanted to cry.

4 months ago, in a far less heroic fashion, I ruptured my ACL, tore my MCL and damaged the cartilage in my left knee. I was lucky enough to have one of the top knee surgeons in the country do my operation and rehab is going well. The only effects of my injury were a month off work, a mountain of medical bills and the end of my budding netball league. For a professional rugby player it may mean the end of their career.

Depending on the severity of the initial injury, time off can be anything from two weeks (for a grade 1 MCL tear) to nine months (for a full ACL rupture). The mental process is even harder, your body has let you down and you have to learn to trust it again, this is easier said than done.  Schalk Burger torn his medial cruciate ligament (MCL) in February and was expected to be out for four to six weeks, it is now the end of August and he is yet to make his return. There is a fine line that must be walked with a knee injury, if you come back too soon you will just re-rupture the ligament. Ask Butch James, he's had 5 ACL reconstructions since his debut for the Springboks in 2001. The shining light in Butch's case is that he did come back, and last represented the Springboks at the 2011 world cup. So a knee injury, or five, does not necessarily mean the end of your career but it does hurt you form.

Taking an entire season off means that a comeback may not be all that spectacular. For someone like Bismarck it seems like high treason to even suggest, but it is a worry.  Look at Quade Cooper, you can see from a mile away that he doesn't trust that knee. It's in the way he hesitates to side-step and slows down when faced with a tackler, there is a moment of self-doubt, a hint of fear and that makes the world of difference.  That’s not to say that he isn’t a great player and won’t get back to form, but a year out when you’re at your peak still has its effects.

As the list of knee injuries grows weekly (the Aussies also lost Dave Pocock to the crisis on the weekend) and I squirm in my seat looking at the tv screen, I wish them all the best of luck for the next round of the Rugby Championship. To the boys watching from the couch not the field, a speedy and dramaless recovery to you, from the bottom of my heart.