Hooker impatient to get back in action

By CHRIS RATTUE


Patience was the virtue Tom Willis relied on most heavily as he fought his way back from the lower-back injury which cut his highly-promising season short six months ago.

Willis, who makes his Waikato debut in the starters against Canterbury in Hamilton tomorrow night, is completely confident about the strength of the repair job and never doubted he would return to the game.

"Never, not once," the 25-year-old hooker said when asked if doubts set in during the long rehabilitation.

"But I knew that if I rushed I would get myself in trouble. It is a back we're talking about and I play in the front row. I had to do the time."

Willis was injured playing for the Chiefs against his old Highlanders team at Carisbrook in a round-seven Super 12 game.

The extent of the injury, found to be an acute prolapsed disc, was diagnosed in South Africa a couple of days later. Willis immediately returned home and the errant piece of bone was snipped off during an hour of micro-surgery.

He was left flat on his back for the next three weeks "doing lots of DVDs and internet". And when he could start walking, it was only for 10 minutes a day initially.

"It was slow, gradual progress," he said.

Willis talked to others, such as fellow Chiefs forward Keith Robinson, who had been through similar experiences.

"Robbo is more reckless than me - anything that took me six weeks, he had done after three," mused Willis. The hardest part of his recovery had been watching rugby matches, because he was "itching to get out there".

Willis has trained fully for the past six weeks and played 40 minutes for the Waikato development team last week.

In line with his patient approach, he never pinpointed a specific match for his NPC return, so as not to be pressured into a risky comeback.

His inclusion brings a powerful leadership force to Waikato, and he is also particularly accurate at set-piece time.

Willis stated early in the season that he is seeking to be more dynamic around the field.

Waikato coach John Mitchell said it had been a hard call to bring Willis in ahead of Scott Linklater.

"The team will be served better through Tom starting. Scott will be more effective coming off the bench," Mitchell said.

There are no other changes to the line-up which beat Otago in the last round, meaning Stephen Donald is retained at first five-eighths ahead of David Hill, who will be outside him in the backline.

Canterbury coach Aussie McLean has retained experimental fullback Dan Carter, Justin Marshall returns from a niggling injury, and Scott Hamilton replaces wing Marika Vunibaka who is ill.

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