Jamie Booth takes it step by step
Maybe my chat with injured Hurricanes halfback Jamie Booth in some small way helped break up another long day for him.
So did his invitation to speak at Chris Long’s Movember Foundation men’s health breakfast, which Booth attended in his wheelchair aweek or so ago, getting him out of the house.
Long-term injuries are the bane of sportsmen and must test their mental endurance. His Manawatu¯ confederates, All Blacks
Ngani Laumape and Nehe Milner-skudder, know all about that with their enforced rehabilitations.
Milner-skudder has spoken on the record about how he went into dark spaces mentally while repairing his broken shoulders.
For Booth, as the Turbos captain, this season had been tough enough with nine losses and just one win and he found it challenging concocting so many losing speeches after matches.
He was arguably again Manawatu¯’s best performer this year and the clear heir to TJ Perenara’s Hurricanes jersey until he broke his right leg and tore ligaments in a tackle against Hawke’s Bay at Napier on October 24. That it happened seven minutes from fulltime was even more frustrating.
So for the second time in his life he has been confined to virtual home detention as his leg repairs itself, for now restricted to reading his Kindle and watching Netflix.
Although he admits it ‘‘is a bit frustrating’’ sitting on the couch all day and with the gym off limits, it has been about seven weeks since his first surgery and a first goal of eight weeks is getting closer. He uses a crutch about the house, but soon might be able to test himself pedalling and gently walking.
He declares if there is one way to get himself down, it is by worrying about when he might resume playing. That must come second to patiently reactivating the leg and regaining lost muscle.
As an 18-year-old in 2013, a leg injury in club rugbywas much more serious. Booth required a complex knee ligament reconstruction complicated by nerve damage and bone fragments, all of which imperilled his career and which doctors said were injuries more common in road accidents. However, Booth defied the experts by returning to rugby and regaining all of his vaunted pace.
Rather than go into his shell, he has always been forthcoming in talking about the injuries when I have called to intrude, while grappling with the medical terminology. He’s praying there won’t be any complications to his tibial plateau fracture, which is up close to the knee and which usually takes three to four months to heal.
Another positivewas that he didn’t snap his anterior cruciate ligament, as he did last time. His medial and posterior cruciate ligaments were ruptured and with both having been surgically repaired, it should be better than a knee reconstruction.
Booth is philosophical about this latest injury, calling it ‘‘the nature of the beast’’ and ‘‘to be honest it was a pretty silly tackle’’.
He’d just had a fracas with Kurt Baker, had been admonished like a schoolboy by referee Nick Briant and, still fired up, Booth tried to flick the ball from Neria Fomai with his foot. Then when lying injured with his whole lower limb feeling sloppy, while Briant paid him no heed nearby, Hawke’s Bay fans sledged him mercilessly.
What’s done is done and an assessment after three months of patience will tell the tale.
Monro’s half ton
Retired Palmerston North accountant Neil Monro is believed to be the holder of some sort of record as a sports volunteer.
He turned 90 on Saturday coinciding with the anniversary of his 50 years as treasurer of the NZ Rugby Museum. A cake was duly produced by the museum and, in deference to his age, he was not asked to extinguish 90 candles, just one.
The Monro name carries plenty of mana. His grandfather, Charles, was the founder of rugby in New Zealand and was the Manawatu¯ Golf Club’s first president.
In 1970, Neil remembers being summoned to a meeting with John Sinclair and Fred Spurdle, who were setting up the museum, and they needed a treasurer. Monro was lukewarm about it, but they roped him in. He didn’t know Spurdle, wasn’t really a rugby man and didn’t know anything about museums.
A few years ago the museum was struggling and when a few suggested winding it up, Monro wasn’t having a bar of it, telling everyone not to be too hasty. He is still there and has always, wisely, insisted on building cash reserves. Without them during the Covid interruption this year, they might have had to shut the doors. For his efforts he was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal in 2014.