By Richard Lee - 14/10/2008

Opportunities & Knocks

With me playing and Mark Tyler here on loan covering, injuries have dictated much to do with the goalkeeping situation at the club this season. And it got me thinking about how injuries have a massive say in what goes on.

Taking it back a few seasons, I can remember having a good run as first-choice keeper being cruelly cut short through injury - and it's nothing any professional can have too much of an influence over...or can they?

Okay, mine was a fractured cheekbone picked up in a collision with an opponent and there's not much you can do about that. But, as sports science has moved on, so we at Watford have done more and more preparatory, or "prehab" as we like to refer it, to reduce the risk of all the more preventable kind of injuries happening.

They tend to be the soft tissue ones; muscles in particular of course, such as hamstrings, calves, quads (thigh), backs etc etc.

But when an injury hits you, like in the case of Poomy and Loachy just recently, it does disrupt all the plans you had at the start of a season. You've done all your summer work, played in friendlies, feel sharp and yet you're denied a chance to perform because of something you had no control over.
 
That's a tough mental challenge, let alone physical. It changes everything. You're in peak condition, at the top of your game, then suddenly you're not going to be playing for two, three, four, even six months in Poomy's case.
 
Of course we're very well looked after, as professional footballers, but then again it's in the club's interests to get us back and available as soon as possible. There's not the same support network for amateur sportsmen and women, which is a shame because really everyone deserves an efficient level of care.
 
So we can be injured one day, assessed the next and sometimes straight in for surgery if that's appropriate - or at the very least starting a programme of work to rehabilitate towards full fitness.
 
With players that are desperate to return, the medical staff know they'll be in for a battle to restrain that person from getting back out to training too soon. That's good for us, because the medical staff know the state and condition of an injury a lot better than the player.
 
Even in these times when I believe players know their own bodies pretty well, to get an objective view on the situation is vital - because to take steps backwards when you might have taken a good few forwards towards a come-back is the most disheartening feeling of all.
 
There's new testing methods right now when they can scientifically measure how near to full fitness you are. It's yet to be too widespread in the game but I know it's around. That will then provide some real definition for both player and physio to give a more hard and fast statement on how recovery work is going than having to rely on someone saying "I'm okay now" just because they're longing to be involved again.

Up until a few weeks ago at the club, I distinctly remember there was only me on the injuries list. We have a sheet pinned up at the training groud; I don't need to tell you it's a lot fuller than we'd all like it to be right now.