THE LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY
THE CENTRE knew instantly when it happened in March. It was as typical as any training session can be – there are ups and downs through every season and some days you start fresher than others, but coming off a game for Gloucester, Henry Trinder felt alright.
Then it blew up. He ruptured his Achilles after jumping to catch a pass.
“As I landed and tried to push off, it just popped at the back of my leg,” Trinder tells us. “I knew what it was. And I hit the ground, grabbed my Achilles... or where it should be. It wasn’t and that’s when I thought, ‘Wow, that’s pretty much gone.’ So I then gave it my best attempt to try and hold it all in place, which obviously wasn’t doing anything and I got carried off the field and into the physio room.” So began an odyssey…
Trinder is no stranger to injuries. He has had plenty of niggles, the odd tweak and damage needing a few months to heal – he fractured a shoulder and a jaw in a rough season, he gives as one example. But he then had what he calls his first “big, big injury” back in 2015.
The one-club man describes it as “folding my knee in half” on his return from five months out – in a season opener he damaged his anterior cruciate ligament, lateral collateral ligament and hamstring.
His comeback from that injury, in 2016? He says he felt fine playing for half a season, but as the campaign end approached, he got caught in a ruck and damaged the same knee. More surgery followed, bringing another eight months of recovery and rehabilitation.
This is a part of rugby that rarely gets covered in any detail. Out of sight, out of mind, we hardly hear of what is happening behind the scenes with the badly wounded athletes. We only get snippets during the glorious comebacks, complications or retirements.
So with Trinder now targeting a return to Gloucester action again, in his testimonial year no less, who better to guide us through what really happens when someone suffers long-term injury. Over
