Gold Coast Titans captain Ryan James on his ACL recovery and mentoring rising front-rowers

INJURED Gold Coast captain Ryan James is hoping to mentor the Titans’ emerging forwards talent as he makes fast progress in his recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament tear.

INJURED Gold Coast captain Ryan James is hoping to mentor the Titans’ emerging forwards talent as he makes fast progress in his recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament tear.

Make no mistake: The 27-year-old will not return to the NRL field until the start of next year. But he has taken satisfaction from the process compared to when he did his knee midway through 2011.

“The recovery has gone pretty good,” James said.

“It’s way easier than my first one because you sort of know what’s coming.

“My last one was an ACL, medial, meniscus – it was sort of the whole thing – whereas this one is just straight ACL. It took me ages last time to start walking pretty good range.

“A week in (this time), I reckon I was where I was after a month last time, so I’m pretty lucky.

Ryan James with his son Carter. Picture: Jerad Williams

“I know there is a lot of hard work ahead of me but that’s footy and that’s life. There’s plenty of worse off people in the world than me doing my ACL.”

James is hoping to continue being a senior figure, including in areas such as corporate, around Parkwood during his rehabilitation.

“Hopefully I can get to work with some of the younger fronties (front-rowers) and talk to everyone about stuff outside of footy because if you think too much about footy it starts to consume you,” he said.

“So if I can just talk to them and get to know them a bit better, it’s going to be better for us in the long run.

Ryan James pictured leading the team out against the Warriors in Round 4. Picture: AAP Image

“But if they ask for help and if I can see somewhere that I can give them help, I will put my hand up.”

The 144-game veteran has been excited by the rise of the likes of Max King, Moeaki Fotuaika and Jai Whitbread.

“A couple of guys have surprised me this year with how much they had grown over the off-season,” said James, whose former Northern Rivers representative teammate Tyrone Roberts is filling in as skipper for the rest of the year.

“Someone like Maxy King, who is such a young kid, really found a voice over the off-season.”

Away from footy, James noted he was keeping busy working with older brother Brad on his 1967 Mustang as well as renovating a house in Tugun.