FIRST he had to overcome the news his anterior cruciate ligament was torn. Next came his daunting first match back after being told it had miraculously mended itself.

Now Daniel Giansiracusa has crossed yet another hurdle in his recovery from the potentially season-ending injury he sustained in December last year.

He's passed the 16-week barrier, which was the time designated by his surgeon Dr David Young as the required period for the ligament to permanently "stick down" without further chance of rupture.

"Youngy came into the rooms last week and he said that he'd be happy after about 16 weeks, and I think that's happened now," Giansiracusa said ahead of round three.

"There's risks with everything in footy. I didn't expect this, I just changed direction and I walked off the ground and it felt okay. There wasn't a huge amount of pain.

"When I was going to see the surgeons, I wasn't thinking ACL. But now it's just all guns blazing and going out there to have a crack."

Since returning to the game a month ago, Giansiracusa said he's felt no pain in the offending leg – only good fortune at the fact his season is on track after almost entering 12 months of rehab.

"I feel very lucky," he said.

"At the start of December, it didn't look great and I dodged a bit of a bullet there. It's just great to be out there with the boys and to be 2-0, it's a great start.

"I've felt nothing, it's been great. I think that's my fourth game back, I played a couple for Williamstown and I'm going into the year looking at it as being a bit of a bonus to be there.

"I was facing 12 months out, so I'm enjoying being out there and winning at the moment."

Giansiracusa said he had thought about the seven other players who were contemplating a year away from the game after undergoing full reconstructions during the pre-season.

"I think I was probably one of the first, and then [Nathan] Grima at the Kangaroos went down, and you feel bad for those guys," he said.

"It is luck. I changed direction at training, and you do it 100 times out here and in a game, and it's just lucky that the surgeon decided to put it in a brace for four weeks.

"Whether I got it done then or four weeks later wouldn't have made a difference; I would have missed the whole season anyway.

"It healed well and it stuck down, and so far, so good."

Having missed some of the most important weeks of the pre-season, Giansiracusa was asked how concerned he was about the reduced number of kilometres he got into his legs over summer.

But the 26-year-old is not worried about his level of endurance just yet.

"Our fitness staff is really good. Ryan Griffen missed the start of the pre-season and he's come back really fit," he said.

"Brian Lake missed a bit of it; and I feel really fit out there, which is a credit to them.

"Time will tell going through the season whether I get tired and stuff like that, but at the moment, I feel really fit in keeping up.

"Obviously, rotations are a big thing in footy at the moment and we're doing a fair bit of that as well, and the coaching staff see if I'm a bit tired, they can take me off.

"In terms of recovery and going back out there, I feel really good."

Since coming back, Giansiracusa said he hads noticed a marked improvement in his teammates' maturity as they looked to atone for a disappointing 2007.

"The list is a year older and with what we've gone through last year and worked on over the pre-season, there's a bit of ownership, not just between the older guys in the side, but throughout the whole squad," he said.

"I think Lindsay Gilbee brought us in at three-quarter time and said we really wanted to grind [Melbourne] because we wouldn't have done that in the past, and he wouldn't have done that in the past either.

"So I think that's a bit of maturity amongst the group."