‘My focus is with the Lions’

I won’t go into a game thinking I need to prove myself because I’ve been out Warren Whiteley Springbok captain After seven months recovering from a torn ligament, Warren Whiteley is aiming to resume his career

No one comes back from a long-term injury and immediately plays at 100% capacity

● The last time he played on local soil the Springboks took the first tentative steps on what they hoped was their path to redemption. Injury, however, ripped then newly appointed captain Warren Whiteley from a team purportedly endowed with new resolve and purpose. The Boks, however, relapsed into the bad ways that characterised their 2016 season.

Over the past seven months Whiteley has been out of sight, and at times mind too, and he is now faced with the added complication of having to establish himself in the consciousness of whoever assembles the Springbok team later this year.

Naturally, Whiteley is reluctant to comment on the imbroglio involving SA Rugby and former Springbok coach Allister Coetzee. Besides, he’s got enough on his plate.

“It has always been my belief that your focus has to be with your franchise first,” said Whiteley. “You need to contribute there first. That has to happen before you can be selected for your country. My focus is to contribute at the Lions first. Then, if you’re good enough and you’re playing at a good standard you can be selected for your country.”

Whiteley would have been justified if he felt a little insecure. The torn ligament in his pelvis rendered him inactive just when he was establishing himself as the team’s fulcrum.

With Coetzee gone, does he feel he needs to prove himself all over again? “No, not at all. I don’t put that expectation on myself. I don’t think about having to prove myself. I just want to play and improve. For me the first game (in Super Rugby) is going to be a step in the right direction. After that, and purely from a personal perspective, I can evaluate myself. I can then ask whether my intensity was high enough, do I need to do more fitness work, or am I as sharp as I should be?

“I won't go into a game thinking I need to prove myself because I’ve been out for seven or eight months.”

For Whiteley it is not the time to sweat things beyond his control. “No one knows what’s happening. For me to think what is happening outside my franchise would hamper my performance because it will be distracting. My focus is with the Lions first.

“It feels like I’ve never been away after two and a half months in Japan,” said Whiteley about returning to the Lions.

“I think going to Japan has worked out as the best thing I could have done. Having been injured for that long and then being able to focus solely on my rehab and my recovery and then being able to play.

“That is crucial. To play four games and get some confidence back. To work towards match fitness was crucial. I’m grateful I had the chance to do that.”

He reflected on an injury he stressed was “serious”, and his approach to getting back to peak condition. “It is almost like a serious knee injury. You can play but it is going to take you a while. There is still a lot of stiffness and I still have to do a lot of rehab every week. It is going to take time to be 100%. I had nerve damage and that can take up to nine months [to heal]. But if I compare what I feel like now to what I felt like back then, then it is night and day.

“In the next few weeks I will also improve a lot before the first Super Rugby game. No one comes back from a long-term injury and immediately plays at 100% capacity.”

It’s about small, deliberate steps for Whiteley. It’s an approach that will help bring him clarity in uncertain times.

“I just want to play. I don’t think about those external things, or outside pressures. I just want to contribute. The more I play the better it will get.”