HULL FC’s Will Pryce has opened up on his injury ordeal, admitting his mental health was affected by a season-ending ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
However, the dynamic fullback has vowed to bounce back as he begins the long road to recovery.
Pryce, 23, was injured against Wigan Warriors last month in round two of Super League.
In his first interview since being told he’ll be out of action until 2027, he told League Express: “It’s been really tough in the past month.
“Initially, after the injury, I was just gutted: gutted to find out that I was going to be done for this year again.
“Coming off the back of last year, when I’d been injured for pretty much the whole season as well, it’s just like one thing on top of another.
“It definitely has had an effect on my mental health.
“But I’m a week post-surgery now, just back at home with my family, resting and doing everything I can to get it right before I start the rehab process.
“The first week or two before surgery, where I was waiting to go in, I was a bit nervous to see how I’d be afterwards.
“But I’ve researched a lot of athletes who have done it, across a lot of sports and especially Rugby League, and seen plenty of players come back from this injury and go on to have great careers for ten or 15 years, so I take greater confidence from that.
“The way I recover from the injury is down to me and how my team and I can do the best we can to start getting ready for it now. I’ll be aiming for round one next season.”
Pryce, who penned a three-and-a-half-year deal after arriving from NRL club Newcastle Knights last March, is one of numerous fullbacks sidelined by serious injury in the opening rounds of Super League.
But Pryce is unsure whether there is any common underlying factor: “It’s tough to say.
“In my situation, it’s just come from a freak accident where a tackle’s gone wrong, so I can’t really speak on that.
“The game is faster this year in England, and fullbacks, obviously, are covering the most distance in terms of anyone on the pitch.
“In the first two games, especially the one against Bradford Bulls, I’d covered more than 10,000 metres.
“So that puts into perspective how much running we’re doing at the back.
“There could be a year or two worth of players getting injured in games because of the speed of the game increasing.
“That’s just probably what will happen in terms of players getting used to playing at that level of intensity. But we’ll have to wait and see.”