INJURED SHINGLER GOES BACK TO HIS ROOTS
IT wasn’t the news Aaron Shingler was hoping to hear.
The Scarlets back-rower, one of the players of the season in Wales in 2017-18, has been told he needs further ‘clean-out’ surgery on his injured knee and is unlikely to return to action until after the 2019 Six Nations.
It has been a hugely frustrating time for the 31-year-old, who damaged his ACL in May’s Guinness PRO14 final in Dublin.
But amid the daily grind of rehabilitation – the hours with the physio, building strength in the gym, the length after length of the swimming pool – Shingler been coaching his village team, Yr Hendy RFC.
It is the club which provided the springboard for his rugby career, the club that his father Craig captained and coached and where younger brother Steve, the Cardiff Blues flyhalf, also played in his younger days.
So on Saturday, with the Scarlets in Glasgow preparing for their latest league assignment, the recognisable 6ft 6in frame of Shingler was on the touchline as Hendy took on league leaders Felinfoel in a division one west clash – a match that saw the home side upset the odds to claim a bonus-point victory in what was a fine advert for the grassroots game.
“I enjoy it, it has been important to me,” says Shingler, who is part of a coaching team that includes his brother Steve as well as former Hendy players Dorian Jones and Chris Morgans.
“My brother had been coaching down here and he asked me if I wanted to help out. He said there were a good group of boys here and I thought ‘yeh’, why not.
“It is something different, it is a bit more relaxed and the team has been doing well.
“They are motivating themselves, they are keen to do well and I love that. I don’t have to go out there and try and get the boys up, they do that themselves, which is great.
“And when they win I get a good kick out of that as well.” How it all started
SHINGLER didn’t take the normal route to professional rugby.
He wasn’t part of any regional academy pathway, instead stumbling upon rugby following a promising cricket career as a fast bowler with Glamorgan
“I played here when I was about 18 or 19. I remember my first game, my dad was playing No. 8 at the time, he wasn’t playing one Saturday, they were short and he told me you’re playing for the Hendy today.
“I told him ‘no I’m not’. I hadn’t played rugby for four or five years.
“The cricket season had just ended and to be honest, I didn’t really want to play rugby, I was about 85 kilos, there wasn’t much meat on the bone at that point (he is weighing in at 110 kilos these days).
“But he made me play. I think it was Crymych away and I remember him telling me they had a big, nasty No. 8 and they did, he didn’t let me down there. He hit me hard a few times, I felt that, but I did enjoy it, I enjoyed the team and I got a bit of a buzz out of it.
“I then played against the Bont (Pontarddulais), which is a massive derby for us. There was a big crowd, I scored two tries and there was someone from Llanelli watching. I was invited to train with Llanelli, picked up a development contract and it all went from there.”
Shingler accepts a career that has seen him play more than 130 games for the Scarlets and win 17 caps for Wales, could have been very different.
“Looking back, I was a tall, skinny guy, I had a bit of pace, my skills were alright, but you wouldn’t have turned up and said, ‘he’s going to make it in professional rugby’.
“If someone had not seen me that day against Bont, I would probably have gone back to playing cricket, or maybe carried on playing for Hendy and that would have been the end of that.
“I look at rugby at this level in Division One and it is a physical
game, we have picked up some nasty injuries this season, these boys are hitting each other hard ... just for enjoyment.
“We have had one boy who has two ACL operations, he has come back and hurt his shoulder and he still wants to come back and play again.
“It is a savage game at the moment, just look at what’s happened to Ellis (Jenkins). He virtually nailed down his World Cup spot with that performance against South Africa, but now he is looking at a long time out.”
The pain game
AS for Shingler’s own knee injury, he admits he went through some dark times in the early days.
“What happened after the injury was the worst month of my life, to be honest with you,” he recalls.
“I came back from Dublin, I remember it was the Bank Holiday on the Monday, I had a scan on the Tuesday, went to London on the Wednesday, was operated on the Thursday and came home on the Friday and was in horrendous pain.
“I thought I was good with pain, but this, this was something else.
“I couldn’t get off the sofa on my own and I had to move in with my parents in the end, my dad is a big man and he had to lift me.
“I had that for about three weeks. I didn’t get out of the house because it was too painful to get into the car.
“It was a bad month, a really bad month. I had this huge brace on my leg and I genuinely couldn’t get out of bed at times.” So is the Six Nations too soon for a comeback date?
“I had been hoping to come back around Christmas time, but it’s looking more like a nine-month injury, which is more like February or March which is a bit of a blow for me. I’m going in on Tuesday now for an op, a bit of a clear-out,” he adds.
“I have been training alright, but in the last couple of weeks I have hit a bit of a plateau and I haven’t been able to move on from it.
“It’s mad. I did both my miniscus cartilages and an ACL from a little sidestep. It wasn’t even in contact. I was running and then all of a sudden I am out for nine months.
“I have never been in position before where you are playing really well and then all of a sudden it’s nine months out with no rugby. It is a strange feeling and very frustrating.”
The comeback trail
OF course, wherever he goes these days, Shingler can’t escape talk of the injury, even on the touchline at Hendy Park.
“It happens a lot. How’s your knee Shings? when are you back? I have that conversation every day. I have got used to it,” he smiles.
“I don’t expect to be playing a lot of games this year unless we (Scarlets) are in the play-offs in both competitions. If we are, potentially there are three months of big games at the end of the season. That is the target and hopefully I can be involved in the warm-up games in the summer.
“I need to make sure I’m right because if I get this wrong and something happens, my ACL fails, then I’m in trouble, that is probably end of career for me.
“But I think I’ll know when I’m ready.
“We have a very good team at the Scarlets, good physios, the conditioning coaches are very good, I have had Andy Williams in London do my operation and they tell me he is pretty much the best in the world.”
In the meantime, Shingler will continue to try and guide his home club through the rigours of life in division one west.
Visits to the likes of Aberystwyth, Crymych, Kidwelly and Gowerton are a far cry from the Principality Stadium, Twickenham and the Aviva, which Shingler graced with aplomb last season.
But life back at grassroots is certainly helping with the healing process.