Brierley on track to start running in October

Tommy Brierley

Oldham Rugby League Club's winger or full-back Tommy Brierley, a long-term injury victim as he fights back from a fractured leg and a smashed-up knee, is hopeful that he might be running again by the start of October.

Looking even further ahead, the 25-year-old former York City Knights, Hunslet and Dewsbury back hopes to be strong enough on his left leg to do some pre-season training in the early part of next year and to be fully ready for the start of next season.

He stressed the word "hopefully" and added: "I've set myself targets and up to now I'm doing well and I'm confident of reaching those targets.

"I can't speak highly enough of the rehab I'm getting at the club and the support I'm getting from the chairman, the other lads, the coaching staff and the entire backroom team.

"We are a closely-knit unit at the best of times, but from my personal point of view, it has never shone through more than during my injury absence.

"I go over to Oldham once a week for rehab etc and I've been there as a spectator at most home games. The support and encouragement I get is great. For a sportsman or sportswoman to be on long-term injury is an awful experience, but I can't tell you what the support at the club means to me."

Tommy is no stranger to this sort of thing, having been out for seven months earlier in his career with a similar injury to his other leg. "I was hoping my luck would change when I moved to Oldham. It looked to be going that way in my first season with the Roughyeds, then this in the first league game against Keighley this year."

Tommy went down in an innocuous-looking tackle as he ran the ball out of defence, but it quickly became apparent that something serious had happened.

He has since had surgery at a hospital in Pontefract, where he lives, to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and a fractured tibia  (one of the two main bones in the lower leg}.

The ACL (knee injury) is more serious than a broken leg and it's the reconstructed knee that takes such a long time to be ready for physical contact again.

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