One small step for man, one giant leap for Hamish Hartlett.

To the outsider they were such insignificant moments but to Hartlett they were major milestones as he recovered from a knee reconstruction.

“My first strengthening exercise with the quad, being able to get out on the park and have a little trot around, then jumping, landing, changing direction, kicking … they’re all milestones that keep you wanting to progress,” Hartlett said.

“You get motivation from ticking those little goals along the way.”

Hartlett ruptured the anterior crucial ligament in his right knee in an innocuous incident at training on Thursday, April 26.

When he runs onto Optus Stadium in Perth on Saturday it will be 414 days later.

Hartlett was initially aiming for a JLT Series return and played a SANFL trial in the first week of the AFL season in the hope of playing Round 2.

But he suffered a series of “frustrating” hamstring injuries prolonging his AFL return by 11 weeks.

“In terms of the knee and how that’s all recovered, that all went according to plan, but obviously I’ve had a few little issues with my hamstring and from the same side that the graft was taken from,” he said.

“There’s been half a dozen issues over the last three or four months that have prolonged the return, none of them major but just enough to keep me out for a week or two, and then you don’t have the continuity of training under your belt to be able to play, so you rebuild your training loads again and it’s a flow-on effect.

“But I’ve been able to string together a good five or six weeks’ worth of training and games to now be in a position to play.

“It’s a sense of relief more than anything, it’s taken a little longer than I would have liked but I’m really excited to know I’m playing my first game of AFL footy for 14 months.”

Hartlett and Port Adelaide granted The Advertiser sports photographer Sarah Reed exclusive access to his rehabilitation to document his recovery and road back to senior footy.

For the most part it was day on, day off, allowing his body to adapt to the training load then settle down and go again.

Hartlett had done serious shoulder injuries before but an ACL has given him a greater appreciation of what’s involved in the rehabilitation process.

“You learn more about the injury itself and what muscles, joints and ligaments are all associated with the knee,” he said.

“So a lot of the work revolved around my hip and quad strength, lots of adaptation to jumping and landing, changing direction just to stabilise it again.

“There’s a lot of repetition of the same exercises which can become monotonous and boring, but you understand how significant they are in the long run so you just sort of do them.”

He says teammates Robbie Gray and Dougal Howard, and the sports science and rehab team including Daniel Buberis, Nick Richardson, Stu Graham and Ian McKeown have been instrumental in helping him through.

“They’ve had personal experiences and their support and expertise had been fantastic, particularly early on.

“Footy clubs are a great environment in these types of situations because everyone is sympathising with you and they want you to progress and come back.”

The numbers from his brief SANFL stint suggest he has come back the same player that left.

“Definitely from my game output, my running numbers are as good as they were last year if not better which holds me from the mental side of things in a really good place,” he said.

“And I certainly feel like I haven’t lost any of my power and ability to explode out of a contest — that it’s at a strong level — so hopefully I get the opportunity to display that on Saturday against Freo.”

But he also comes back as Port Adelaide’s vice-captain after being voted into the club’s three-man leadership group in February.

“It was something I’m very proud of, only playing five games last year it can be difficult to be seen as that leader presence around the football club,” he said.

“But I worked really hard on building on the relationships that I had with my teammates and trying to connect with all the players on a bit of a deeper level.

“And then let my own training, particularly in rehab, lead the way in terms of what a high quality workrate looks like for the younger guys.”

reece.homfray@news.com.au