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SYDNEY - Wallabies fullback Chris Latham says his comeback from a serious knee injury last month has made him physically and mentally ready for next month's Rugby World Cup.
Latham was pitched into the the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup decider against the All Blacks in Auckland on July 21 seven months after rupturing an anterior cruciate ligament in pre-season training.
Latham, officially rated one of the best five players in the game at the end of 2006, had played just one-and-a-half games of club rugby before he was hurled in against New Zealand.
He said the experience of making a comeback from injury in Auckland plus club games have him physically and mentally ready for the rigours of a World Cup.
"I've never really had an issue with the knee, it's always been just getting the time to get the game-sense back in to me and to get my skills up to scratch," Latham told reporters Monday.
"I've been able to work fairly hard on that now and obviously I'm very comfortable and very confident now."
Now, it is only the ghosts of World Cups past to be exorcised.
"I'll wait until the team's named and if I'm named in it then that will be a fairly massive relief.
"I set those goals at the end of '03 over the huge disappointment when I wasn't involved then."
Latham was limited to reserve bench roles at the 1999 and 2003 World Cups.
Latham, who has made 73 international appearances, believes Wallabies' coach John Connolly was right to throw him into the deep end against the All Blacks rather than save him for the World Cup pool games.
"As it's turned out it definitely has been the best thing that I could have ever done," he said.
"I certainly know that I would have been in a little bit of a different mindset going into the first (World Cup) game (against Japan) on September 8 if I hadn't climbed that first mountain and played in that Auckland Test."
- AFP
