Chatting on this week’s Crows Podcast, Porplyzia admits confidence will be the final hurdle to overcome if he is to be ready to play in 2011.
And he is also learning about ways to make sure his shoulder muscles are working correctly to help protect the area.
The classy Crows forward dislocated his right shoulder in the opening minutes of the first game of the premiership season, moments after he booted the first goal with his first kick of 2011.
“Everything is on track at the moment,” Porplyzia said. “It’s two months since surgery and it’s feeling good. The surgery that I had this time was a lot less invasive than the previous one so it’s a bit of an easier recovery, hopefully a quicker recovery time although we are not sure yet if I’m going to come back this year. If we are pushing for finals, you’ve got to weigh up the risks.”
Porplyzia, 26, is also learning all about proprioception - the sense of the orientation of limbs in space - as he prepares for his return to competitive training.
“Scotty Wilson, the new physio, has been exceptional with my rehab, he’s been looking at everything we can do about getting the proprioception,” Porplyzia said.
“Hopefully we are trying to devise a test where we can measure what the proprioception is like in the bad shoulder compared to the good one.
“I think the key thing for me is getting confidence within myself back in the shoulder. I won’t be pushing it along unless I feel confident with it first and that’s sort of the final step, doing all the competitive work. You’d like to get a definite measure and confidence is sort of a subjective measure, it’s only what you can feel.”
Porplyzia was the special guest on this week’s ‘Down the Guts’ podcast, hosted by Patrick Dangerfield and Phil Davis. He also talks about his role of trying to help the forwards, his work with the Crows Foundation and a TV commentary stint for the Foxtel Cup.
