Like the Crows, Knights had every reason to be optimistic heading into 2010.
The 23-year-old was coming off a career-best year and had hardly missed a session during the club’s gruelling pre-season.
He fronted the media prior to Adelaide’s NAB Cup opener against Port Adelaide and spoke of his excitement about finally playing a game, after another long summer.
But for Knights and the team the NAB Cup served only as the starting point in a season of frustration and disappointment.
Shortly after the Crows’ pre-season loss to the Power, Knights was told he would spent six weeks on the sidelines with a stress fracture in his foot.
The stress fracture had developed as a result of the left footer’s ongoing battle with plantar fasciitis, meaning he was now battling two painful and debilitating conditions.
“I had the plantar fasciitis all last season and I only got the stress fracture because I was using different parts of my foot to take the load because my heel was so sore,” Knights said.
“Normally, you put pressure on your heel and then it is dispersed through the rest of the foot, but because I couldn’t put any pressure on my heel I was overcompensating and running on the outside of my foot. Once I got on top of that the stress fracture went away.”
A month in a moonboot might have healed the stress fracture, but the plantar fasciitis was getting worse.
Knights pushed through the pain barrier to play rounds three, four and five, before being forced back onto the sidelines.
“The plantar fasciitis continued to degenerate to the point where it was detaching from the bone,” he said.
“I tried to come back, but against the Bulldogs [in round five] I tore it off the bone a bit more.
"I gave it another four weeks to see if it would settle down, but it didn’t so I had to go down the path of surgery.”
The detachment from the bone made it impractical for Knights to take former St Kilda skipper Robert Harvey’s infamous approach and jump off a table to completely tear the damaged plantar fascia, and he was scheduled for surgery in Melbourne.
After six weeks, Knights was ready to return in the SANFL but his cursed comeback was short-lived, after he strained his oblique muscles playing for Woodville-West Torrens.
He missed another two games and is only now back in the running to play his fourth AFL game of the season, against the Western Bulldogs at AAMI Stadium on Sunday.
“It’s been a nightmare,” Knights said of his season. “There have been a lot of negatives to do with the injury and not playing much football, but at the same time you’ve got to draw some positives from it.
“It puts a few things into perspective and made me appreciate what I have because I really missed playing with the boys and playing AFL football.
“Whilst it’s been a year that I’d like to forget I definitely won’t walk away from it thinking that I haven’t got anything out of the season.”
The extended stay in rehabilitation also encouraged the young Victorian to find a better balance between football and life in general.
Knights struck up a friendship with his podiatrist, who convinced him to try his hand at rock climbing.
“I’ve taken up a couple of hobbies, which have kept me sane. I’m really enjoying the rock climbing and it was one of the few activities I could do when I was injured because it doesn’t put too much stress on my foot.
“I’ve been climbing both indoors and outdoors and hopefully I’ll have time to do a bit more outside in the summer.”
