Injury Updates

Nigel Cox has been busier recently than any of us would like. He talked today about the progress of our injured players, including Peter Ramage, who has recently undergone reconstructive surgery on his damaged anterior cruciate ligament. Cox believes the surgery has been a success.

Lee Cook is coming towards the end of his rehabilitation programme, having been given 3 months by his surgeon. He has done all the necessary fitness work and now needs to get some time under his belt doing the ‘football’ type movements, like turning and twisting on grass, according to Cox, before he can start playing again.

I bumped into Cookie a couple of weeks ago and he expressed a hope that he would be involved with the First Team squad for the Bristol City game (live on Sky on Friday 22nd October, by the way). It would appear that that game may come a little too soon for the winger.

The enigmatic Rob Hulse was next up! Cox has admitted that Hulse’s injury is actually an achilles tendon injury. And this has held him back. However, Hulse is now running on the grass and ‘there’s a chink of light on the horizon and we’re looking forward to Rob pushing on and joining the squad,’ Cox admitted.

He added that Hulse will be a great addition to the squad, once he’s fully fit, of course. But whether or not he will need a run out in the Reserves, Cox confessed, would be up to the management and coaching team. ‘Ideally, you’d love all of that,’ Cox agreed.

‘Sometimes the fans don’t understand why we take so long to get some of the boys back. But when your squad’s healthy and big, and you’ve got numbers to play with, then sometimes you can afford to spend a little bit more time getting the boys up to fitness in respect of working solely with the fitness conditioner.

Cox explained that his usual policy is, once the injury has healed and the player is at the stage where he can make his comeback, he first spends at least a week with the fitness conditioner. And bearing in mind how fit our First Team squad looks these days, it would seem important that those who have been left behind due to injury, should be given a chance to ‘catch up’.

‘If you’re not ready, it’s not your injury that’s often going to let you down. It’ll be another muscle that’s not been active, not been used to getting back into the activity that it’s required for,’he continued.

Did anyone realise that Leon Clarke’s been injured? I didn’t! Seems he’s had a slight recurrence of an old knee injury – nothing serious but the Physio team took the precaution of removing him from training, giving him an injection in the knee and some time to let it all settle down and heal. Clarke is now back in full training with the First Team squad and will soon be available for selection.

And so, on to Bradley Orr, who picked up a calf injury a few weeks ago. He’s also had some nerve irritation, which has been of concern, but is now all better. Orr is back in full training and will be able to complete the all-important week’s training from next Monday, ahead of the Norwich game.

Captain Fitz Hall has also been missing recently. An old hamstring injury flared up once again but he’s been working on the grass for quite a while and is, according to Cox ‘really chomping at the bit, bless him!’ Hall will join the squad from next Monday in preparation for the Norwich game on Saturday 16th.

Faurlin picked up a hamstring injury in the recent 3-0 demolition of Ipswich (the first time, by the way, I’ve seen us win at Ipswich – yay!) Apparently, there are three hamstring muscles in that area and Faurlin tore the one muscle which doesn’t usually get damaged!

‘Again, we’ve been a bit cautious,’ Cox told the interviewer. But also confirmed, thankfully, that he is also ‘back out on the grass, kicking a ball this week. And he’ll go back into training again with the boys next week.’

So, there you have it – an extensive review by Nigel Cox, bringing us bang up to date on all our injured players. Thanks, Nigel!

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