Waratahs prop Tom Robertson didn’t need to see the scans to know how serious his knee injury was
Waratahs prop Tom Robertson is set to play his first game in six months this weekend, keeping alive his World Cup hopes.
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Studying a medical degree gave Tom Robertson all the understanding required to digest the devastating news last September.
While most players would cling to hope that the doctor may be wrong when diagnosing an anterior cruciate ligament tear before scan results, Robertson knew.
“It’s quite interesting having studied a lot of that stuff in my university degree and what’s involved in that, I know that it’s 80-90 per cent accurate,” Robertson said ahead of his return to rugby with NSW this weekend.
“When the doc says you’ve likely done your ACL you pretty much know you’ve done it, without looking at the scans.”
Following a long six-month road to recovery, Robertson was taken to South Africa with the Waratahs squad this week and is set to return against the Bulls in Pretoria.
It would be his first rugby game since the serious knee injury suffered at a Wallabies training session in Buenos Aires last year before the Test against Argentina.
“It was really innocuous, at training I stepped off my right foot which you normally don’t do in the front row, it was outside of my body line and my knee just caved in,’ Robertson said.
“Because I’ve never had any ACL injury before I didn’t really know what was involved.
“I was up in the air at the time about the World Cup later this year, that is a big goal for me.
“Now I’ve just got to play well for the Waratahs.”
Robertson said he is fully fit and ready to play, despite the initial plan being to blood him back through the Shute Shield.
“I’ve most done it through training, 10 to 12 scrums a week,” Robertson said.
“I haven’t played Shute Shield, there were a few injuries out of the Sharks game [last Saturday], I’m pretty confident with all the training I’ve done, you’re scrummaging against a Super Rugby starting front row, if you go to the Shute Shield the quality is not as good as what we’ve got in the squad.”
NSW have lost four of their past six games and desperately need victory on tour.
They play the Bulls followed by the Lions in Johannesburg.
Originally published as Waratahs prop Tom Robertson didn’t need to see the scans to know how serious his knee injury was
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