Come the first day of pre-season, young Will Walker says he’ll be a likely starter after escaping serious injury on the weekend against Adelaide.
Scans revealed a minor PCL injury meaning Walker will avoid surgery.
“My plan is to be all systems ‘go’ by day one of pre-season,” he told North Media.
“Not having surgery, it takes about 4-6 weeks off your recovery time and obviously there won’t be much scarring going on in the joint, so it’s quite good.
“Hopefully I’ll be out of the brace in a few weeks’ time and will start to get some weight-bearing back into it and be running soon after that.”
The 19-year-old didn’t know what to think at the time of the incident, but the news is a big weight off his shoulders.
“I’ve never done a knee before, so I had no idea of what I could have done,” he said.
“It was very painful so I was kind of fearing the worst but hoping for the best.
“As soon as the doc said he didn’t think it was anything too major, it was a big relief.”
The midfielder/forward wasn’t the only one concerned.
“Mum’s a physio actually, so she was very nervous and was fearing the worst,” Walker said.
“I got home yesterday afternoon, and no joke, there’s a table covered with all these physio books and knee diagrams.
“She must have been stressing about it and trying to work out what was going on.”
The setback put an end to what was looking to be a promising day for the fourth-gamer.
“Getting a few more games under my belt means I’m not as nervous and I know what to expect a bit more,” he said.
“You also get the support of the boys because they all start to trust you a bit more and you know the structures and the game plan a little bit better too.”
