Cope’s in dreamland after hard road back from injury
JERSEY fly-half Brendan Cope is ‘living a dream’ after recovering from a near life-changing injury and returning to the club’s first-team in recent weeks.
The South African missed the entire league campaign after suffering a rare and unusual injury in pre-season, which not only risked ending his playing career but could have paralyzed him from part-way down his back.
Five months ago the father-of-one thought he may never run onto a rugby pitch and into the heat of battle again.
But thanks to excellent medical treatment, the diminutive playmaker made a try-scoring return to the island side’s starting line-up in their Championship cup first round second-leg away win at London Scottish.
The 28-year-old told TRP: “It’s been so good to get out there again and play in recent weeks. I haven’t played since September, it’s been a very long road so it’s just really good to be just playing again.
“I had discs explode in my back, it was quite a dangerous injury and five months ago I didn’t know if I could or would play again.
“It’s been a rollercoaster, had its ups and downs, good news and bad news and there was a toying of if I could actually play a contact sport so it’s like living a dream to be able to play.
“There was loads of talk about whether days like enjoying a win may ever happen, just because the injury meant my spinal cord was kind of exposed.”
Despite the injury meaning he’s missed Jersey’s best ever performance in the Championship, Cope is a mainstay of the side, being in his second spell on the island having rejoined from Leeds in 2019.
He spent three years with Reds between 2015-18 after moving from Natal Sharks, having starred for Durban Collegians.
Speaking about the injury, Cope added: “It was the night before our preseason match with Sale, that’s when it initially happened, and I played Sale and it just got worse.
“I trained the following week and basically collapsed. From there I was struggling, I saw a specialist and the whole Jersey medical team have been really good. It seemed to happen due to an overload of too much physical impact really.”
In terms of the mental challenge, he added: “It was a tough one to take. There was a period where I couldn’t do much; I couldn’t exert myself at all.
“On the sidelines I have been working hard and I did what I could. For the first four months I could only sit on a bicycle and turn my legs, so when it was time where I could crack on, I worked really hard with a great team behind me, so they put me in good shape.
“I could get fed up, I was blowing, my head was all over the place but I tried to hide my feelings.
“With the scare of not being able to play again, it puts things into perspective so I’m just enjoying things and taking it game by game, it makes it all worthwhile once you get back out there playing with the ball in your hand.
“I was really happy to score all my kicks on my return, as I’ve not trained them enough, so I put trust in what I did in the past and it’s serving me well.”