New Zealand's best hockey player Simon Child is having to face the prospect that his career at the top might be over.
The Black Sticks attacker has been sidelined for a year, since damaging a hip playing in the Hockey India League. It proved a worse injury that first thoughtand he hasn't played a game since then.
Now he's having surgery in mid-May, once he returns from his honeymoon. He was to have gone under the knife this week but the required surgery turned out to be ''gruntier'' than had been expected, hence the rearrangement.
''I've been able to start doing a bit of running, but very basic, straight line and at a pretty slow pace,'' Aucklander Child, 29, said.
''I haven't come close to playing any form of competitive hockey. I've done some light gym work and built up strength, but every time I try to do some lateral stuff, or acceleration, it gets pretty sore and flares up quickly.''
The surgery will involve dislocating his hip, shearing off bone the surgeons believe is protruding into the hip, cleaning the joint and removing some floating cartilage which is thought to be causing pain.
Child has been told there's a 70 percent chance he will recover and get back on the hockey field – which leaves 30 percent of grim news.
''That was pretty hard. It wasn't an easy thing to hear but these things happen,'' Child said.
His 274 caps have him fourth among all New Zealand players; his 140 goals, achieved while turning himself into a world class player, are 10 behind the recently-retired recordholder Phil Burrows.
Child has been an international since 2005. He believes if all goes well, and given a decent amount of recovery time after the surgery, he could have another five years in him.
But he's not about to risk more serious long term injury and future quality of life.
The World Cup at the end of this year is likely pushing it, but the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 appeals. But first things first, so it's surgery, then recovery, then ''we'll see''.
