Jack Willis: I wanted to be back in a year, but just playing again will be an achievement
Jack Willis, Wasps and England flanker
Tuesday November 30 2021, 12.01am, The Times
It feels so disappointing to be writing this but a return to playing rugby by Christmas is now out of the window. I was injured playing for England against Italy in the Six Nations and the surgeon who reconstructed the ligaments in my left knee was hopeful that I was facing a ten-month period of rehabilitation.
One of my mental battles has been not to focus on the end date and the chance of playing again for Wasps alongside my brother, Tom, but I knew it was there. Now there is no timetable. I have this massive thing going on in my head that I do not want the rehabilitation to go on beyond February 14, the date I was injured. Then I will have lost a whole year of my career.
It is a silly thing that plays on my mind but really it is not that important. If it takes a year to get back, it takes a year. Really, I need to see it as an achievement to get back on a rugby pitch after everything that happened. I have to accept that.
Setbacks are sadly part of the journey and I have had two flare-ups in recent months when my knee has swollen. After the first one, in September, I had my knee drained, I had a cortisone injection and they put Ostinol on the joint, which is a bit like WD-40.
Things settled down and I had a really good few weeks of building up the knee again. I spent a week at a rehabilitation clinic in Dublin with Joe Launchbury, my Wasps and England team-mate who is recovering from the same injury, and we did lots of testing. Some of my strength numbers came back positively, growing my confidence — but I think we pushed a bit beyond what my knee was capable of in the weeks after I got home, which caused more swelling.
Rehabilitation is physically painful and arduous but it is also an emotionally taxing process.
I had a mini meltdown in September, which I wrote about in my last column, and this latest setback left me pretty upset again.
Given how much damage I did to the knee, there are always going to be issues. I know that. I have been through it all before, after a knee injury cost me a spot on England’s 2018 tour of South Africa. But this is such a hard one to deal with.
You wake up in the morning and your knee feels shit and you’ve got another load of swelling. Each day you think the worst. You think, “What is going to happen in the future? Is it going to be OK? Is it not?” Then all of a sudden your knee feels good in the gym and you think, “Oh, this is going to be fine.” And then it’s sore again. You feel like you never escape that cycle. The only way is to take it cautiously.
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So I have to suck it up and hope the slow progress, which is infuriating at times, is what will get me back out on the pitch.
That is the priority. It is not about when and specific dates now, it is about building my knee to protect the longevity of my career rather than rushing things. The big focus has to be not getting any more of these reactions.
Willis was initially given a ten-month lay-off period by his surgeon but recent flare-ups have caused complications
I think I have got my head around it all now. I have enjoyed watching my brother play for Wasps from the stands and it will help me keep that perspective when my first child arrives next month. The nursery is all built and decorated at home and my partner, Megan, and I are so excited for our baby to join us.
Having a baby to focus on will immediately become the most important thing for me and I can keep progressing with the rehabilitation in the background until, before you know it, I am back playing rugby again. That is how I am looking at it.
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Back when the injury happened I received messages from Dan Lydiate and Rhys Webb, which meant a great deal to me in a really dark period, and now I am drawing inspiration from another Welshman, Ellis Jenkins. Ellis injured his knee against South Africa in 2018 and it was three years before he played for Wales again, against the Springboks this autumn.
Sometimes it is not helpful to follow the progress of other people because you immediately draw comparisons and those are extra mental hurdles I do not always need.
But I was thrilled to see Ellis return to the field for Cardiff, and even more so to watch him play so well for Wales again and then captain his country against Fiji.
It has given me such a boost. I have listened to some of his interviews and I know that even when I am fit enough to play it will take some games to get my brain and body tuned back into playing rugby.
But to see him playing again at international level — and doing so with a confidence to compete physically and jackal for the ball against the best in the world — is a real inspiration for me. I cannot wait for that day to come — but I cannot think about it yet, certainly not with a baby on the way!
Topic: Jack Willis: Latest recovery update in today's Times (Read 1051 times)
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