Netball: Skipper's true grit wins return for Cup

Casey Kopua in action for the Silver Ferns against the Fiji Pearls in July. Photo / Getty Images

Kopua diligently slogs her way back to form after devastating injury.

In the days after Casey Kopua's surgery to reattach her patella tendon to her kneecap, Silver Ferns physio Sharon Kearney visited the star defender at her Hamilton home.

She was there to map out a plan to give the New Zealand skipper a fighting chance of being back on court in time for the Netball World Cup. But first, she asked Kopua a big question: "Do you want to keep going?"

Kearney reckons not a lot of athletes would contemplate coming back from such a devastating injury. Rehabilitation from a ruptured patella tendon is a slow and painstaking process, and at the end of it there is no guarantee the athlete will have the same explosiveness and speed.

But Kopua never contemplated not coming back. Her response to Kearney's question was unequivocal.

"I said 'yes, definitely - I'm not giving up, I want to be at the World Cup'," she said.

And now she is. Last night Kopua led her side back out on to centre court at Allphones Arena in Sydney Olympic Park - the same court she was stretchered from in extreme distress 10 months ago - for her side's opening World Cup clash against Barbados.

Rather than getting overwhelmed by the emotion of returning to the same venue which witnessed the lowest point in her career, Kopua confronted the mental challenge much in the same way she has with her recovery - head on, with a quiet determination.

She made peace with the court earlier in the week during the team's walk-through of the venue.

There was no special ceremony or pause for thought on the spot where she fell crashing to the floor clutching her knee that didn't look much like a knee any more. But she did make a point of doing her warm-ups down that end of the court.

"I did all my agility work and drills on the same area of court and just sort of got through my work and left it there," said Kopua.

"Initially, just being there brought back a whole heap of memories - walking in I was like, 'oh that's where they wheeled me out of here last time'. But now it's done with, I don't really think about it."

Kopua doesn't want to focus on what she has been through to be back out on court. She is only interested in talking about what she is here for - to bring home the world title.

But Kearney can't help but marvel when she sees the athletic defender running around on court. The plan she mapped out in Kopua's living room all those months ago has been followed with total dedication.

Days, weeks and months of intensive rehab stretched ahead of Kopua as she first had to regain the movement in the joint at a glacial pace of 15 degrees of bend each week. Then she faced the task of strengthening the muscles around her knee that had atrophied after months of immobility.

"Her attention to detail has been phenomenal, and I'm sure at times she's thought 'this is [in] the too-hard basket' but never once did she not do absolutely everything she could do to be here," said Kearney.

"It's a massive injury and there's a lot of athletes who would never come back from it, and would never even contemplate coming back from it, because just the day-to-day grind of rehabilitation is huge.

"But she's been incredible, absolutely incredible. Even when she's been really down from it she's dug herself up, did the work at the gym, spent all day at the Avantidrome - all day every day."

Kearney, who has served as the Ferns' physiotherapist for 16 years, said seeing Kopua crumble to the floor in the third Constellation Cup test against Australia was one of the most sickening injuries she's witnessed on a netball court.

At the time few thought Kopua would be back in Sydney this week. One spectator seated behind the media bench said as a hush fell over the crowd in the moments after Kopua crashed to the floor: "That's it. She's gone."

Kopua admits early on, she feared the worst too.

"I thought at the beginning there was a possibility that I may not be here. If the World Cup wasn't happening this year I don't think I would have pushed myself as hard to get back. Just thinking 'I need to get back there for my team' was a big motivator for me," she said.

"More than anything I'm just excited, because I'm just so happy to be back with the girls, wearing the black dress and playing in the biggest tournament there is in our sport."

She hopes by the end of next weekend, Allphones Arena will also be the site of her greatest achievement - lifting the World Cup.