Max the king of footy return

ONE week Gold Coast forward Max King was having heart surgery, the next he was shining in a shock win over the Broncos.

The Bulletin can reveal the 20-year-old had a procedure on his heart around Christmas time to address an accessory pathway deficit before having follow-up work done during the week of Round 3 NRL action.

“The way they explain it is if your heart is an electricity box, there is an extra wire in there which they burn off to stop these episodes,” he explained.

“It is a one-week turnaround from doing nothing to ripping in completely. They go through your groin so there’s no stitches or anything.”

Titans staff had planned to coincide King’s follow-up with their Round 13 bye week at the start of June but a shoulder knock proved a timely chance to get it sorted sooner.

“We thought he is going to miss the week anyway, let’s just get it done then and get him back on the park as soon we could,” said coach Garth Brennan.

He only missed the Titans’ 54-8 thrashing by the Dragons in Toowoomba and was back on deck in time to contribute 30 tackles and 115 running metres to their 26-14 defeat of Brisbane.

“He got through OK (against Brisbane) … hopefully for Maxy’s sake it has been put behind him,” Brennan said.

King revealed when the issue had struck, it had made him fearful that he was suffering a heart attack.

“It happened in a couple of under-20s games and it was a nightmare,” he said.

“Instead of my heart beating at 100 beats-a-minute it felt like 250. It left me exhausted and unable to keep up.

“It was scary. I thought I was having a heart attack.

“When it was happening in games it was starting to affect my career … hopefully I never have to worry about it again.”

King has been named on the bench to face Manly in Gladstone tomorrow.