A lasting memory from his encounter with an all-time great.
Luke Fitzgerald is a rare breed among rugby players. While most guys prefer to trust the medics and focus on the rehab, Fitzgerald throws himself right into the intricacies around the procedure.
In an odd way, the Leinster back’s eyes light up as he describes the latest surgery he has gone through or the gruelling work he must do in the gym before he gets back on the playing field. He is invested in the comeback process, with each comeback he makes.
Fitzgerald’s latest appointment with the surgeon’s knife was earlier this month, to repair a laberal tear [shoulder cartilage] and his bicep tendon.
‘It seems to be par for the course these days during the off season to get the shoulder done,’ he tells us. ‘Unfortunately, I was one of the guys who had to get it done this year. There was two or three of us, I’m sure you guys know, Sean [O’Brien] and Marty [Moore] obviously got it sorted out as well and a couple last season as well.’
Fitzgerald, who helped launched Canterbury’s range of Ireland’s World Cup training gear, was content to delay the surgery until after Leinster’s season.
Following the league defeat to Ulster – with the province knocked out of Europe and his doctor advising that he would not be near 100% for the final two games of the season – he was eager to get the “long-standing” issue cleared up. By long-standing, Fitzgerald means four years. He says:
These kind of things are kind of par for the course and lots of guys play with a sore shoulder or a laberal tear. It’s just a case of when it gets to a point where there’s instability, that’s the point where you ask, ‘do I need to get this sorted now or can it wait?’ I was able to wait [four] years before I got it done.
‘I hurt it tackling Dougie Howlett, I think, in 2011 in the PRO12 final. I had a nice shot on him and buried it, broke the bone, broke it internally so it’s really bad bone bruising. I tore the laberal that day, so lots of people play on with those things.’
Fitzgerald adds, ‘[My shoulder] just got to a point where I did a small little extra tear, probably due to the instability from having that thing, against Toulon and then played the next week against Ulster and it just wasn’t right. So I was trying to make decisions about being back available for Treviso and it just looked like I wasn’t going to be available for that. I just said, ‘Look, I need to go get this sorted out’ and he [the doc] said the timeline was perfect for getting back for that first [Ireland] warm-up game. It was a bit of a no-brainer.’
The 27-year-old will be skipping any summer holidays and working hard with Ireland physio James Allen to give himself every chance of being ready for Ireland’s first World Cup warm-up, against Wales at the Millennium Stadium [August 8].
‘I’m expecting to be available for that first one and that’s the hope,’ he says. ‘You obviously want to give yourself as many opportunities as you can to be in the shop window for Joe [Schmidt] to pick you to go on the trip.
‘I suppose I’ve a good body of work done this season even though there’s a good bit of competition, so I’m pretty happy with the body of work I’ve done and standing over that, I feel like I’m in a good position going in as long as I can train and play to my full potential with this injury.
‘It’s just a matter of keeping the head down and staying focused on the rehab now.’
