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Rosie Galligan column: Bed pans, morphine, and the rehab bandwagon

Harlequins' Rosie Galligan arrives at the ground during the Allianz Premier 15s match between Harlequins and Gloucester-Hartpury at Twickenham Stoop on January 22, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Bob Bradford - CameraSport via Getty Images)

The last week has been quite tough in all honesty, not being able to drive and being stuck with a 60-degree angle on your leg is a lot harder than you imagine. I’ve had lots of people come and visit; my mum, sister and my partner making sure I’m well fed and watered.

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Tuesday was my first day out the house, one-week post-operation. I got a taxi to Surrey Sports Park to be at Harlequins and I saw my physio for the first time who cleaned my wound and ran me through the next 12 weeks of my comeback, which is exciting. I know time is a healer and now I’m back on the rehab bandwagon. I’m now able to set myself small targets with the hope to be up and moving around by the end of April.

It was good being in the gym for the first time. I’m allowed to do an upper body session and a single lower leg session on my good leg. I have also been given some glute bridges to do on both legs and I can start to use the compex (an electric machine that gets your muscles twitching), on my bad side.

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It’s a big step today as I know if I do these exercises really well now, then it’s going to help me in the weeks to come. Sometimes with rehab you can take the easy route and do the bare minimum, but I want to get back as soon as I can in the best shape.

It’s nice to be back at club, when my physio was changing my dressing I had a group of players come in to look at my scar, (I had a three C distal T-junction tear,) and team mates such as Emily Chancellor have been great with picking me up and taking me out for coffee. It was good to also catch up with others who are injured such as Jade Konkel Roberts and Sarah Bonar.

Harlequins Women have two full time physios and part-time staff so there’s a lot of well qualified hands to look after me whilst England concentrate on the Six Nations.

On the day of my operation, I went in at half six in the morning and was seen by half eight. It was a really quick two hours, got into my gown, chose my food for after surgery which was a tuna mayo and sweetcorn sandwich and packet of crisps and I demolished it when I came out!

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They put me under, as soon as I woke up in the recovery area, I rang my mum to let her know I was awake. I woke up desperate for the toilet and had my first experience using a bed pan which was interesting. The nurses were shocked that I remembered her phone number! I was on double morphine and other painkillers- but I’m not in pain and have managed to wean myself off the drugs I was on within a couple of days.

England have had a great campaign so far in the Six Nations despite the long list of missing players. We had a really long season going into the World Cup and I think there’s a few different factors as to why there’s a lot of injuries but it’s part and parcel of playing elite sport.

The good thing is, England have the strength in depth to put on some quality rugby and still win games. There’s a lot of new faces and opportunity and Mids (England Head Coach Simon Middleton) knows there’s a pool of around 50 people he can chose from nowadays.

I think England took their game up another level against Italy. There was some exiting play with our back three getting on the ball and just showed how Holly Aitchison is controlling the ropes at ten and has come into her own in that position. She’s got that kicking factor and plays to the line and puts defences under different kinds of pressure that they’re not used to with other tens. We need to keep building and playing this exciting brand of rugby.

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Wales have showcased what they can do now they’re a more professional set up and are looking like one of the bigger threats in the tournament. They have a big heavy forward pack and some talented players who play across the Premier 15s. Hopefully England will have a few more players back from injury and can put the game away in front of a record crowd at Cardiff Arms Park next weekend.

The RFU’s tickets sales for the final round against France at Twickenham is incredible. They are set to break the world record set at the World Cup final at Eden Park.

There are still doubters out there, but we are proving how good women’s rugby is and how good the Six Nations is, and the amount of media attention is growing and little details like being able to watch all games on the BBC are converting into ticket sales.

For the next month now, all of England Rugby’s ticketing and marketing strategy will be centred around that Twickenham game, and I can’t wait to be involved as a fan and as a team mate.

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R
RedWarriors 33 minutes ago
The Springbok selection experiment is far from over

SA won two world cups but since 1987 there have been major issues with the draw and scheduling.


Lets look at Scotland and England. Scotland were ranked #9 immediately after RWC 2019.

They were ranked #7 a few months after and by 2023 they were ranked #5 in the world.

England were ranked #3 after RWC 2019 but by 2023 were #7 a full 3 ranking points behind Scotland.

There are 4 Pools. Because World Rugby used rankings from 2019, England were ranked #1 in their pool in with Argentina and Japan and Scotland were ranked #3 in their pool in with South Africa and Ireland. The pools went as youd expect: Scotland were eliminated and England got through to a QF where they got to play Fiji and scraped through to a semi.

At the end of that tournament England were now a full 3 ranking points ahead of Scotland. This wasn’t due to better rugby. It was entirely due to the draw.

Now England are in #6, Scotland are in #7 and England are favourites to be #1 Pool seeds (6 pool) in 2027 and Scotland will end up as #2 seeds.

In effect Scotland are still reeling from the draw in 2023 which was based on the rankings in 2027.

Considering the amount of admirable effort, money etc that Scotland have put into improving this is an utterly unforgivable outcome from World Rugby.

This isnt new Draw disasters and scheduling bias has been going on since the start.

The ONLY reason it is being dealt with now is because NZ and SA were affected and the world could see how ridiculous it was having the QFs with opponents that should be in SFs, and having great teams like Scotland not even qualify from their Pool.


(I don’t have beef with SA beyond their (and the Kiwis) high proportion of arrogant, brash supporters (see abuse directed at me above) and in the case of the NZ team, lack of respect for other teams.)

35 Go to comments
R
RedWarriors 54 minutes ago
The Springbok selection experiment is far from over

Everyone agreed that the draw was absurd. NZ and SA were the most vocal in criticism before the Pool stages, but then the narrative changed after their squeeked through the QFs.

The reason you had to play France and England was because you lost to Ireland.

The draw helped you in that you got to play France in a QF where none of their players had knock-out winning experience. You play England first and then France, and your task becomes significantly harder. If you are also scheduled to play #5 ranked Scotland the week before France then you lose.


I thought Ireland did rise for the NZ match. Inside a week after Scotland and with resultant fatigue and injury. NZ prepared for a year for that match including identifying a potential infringemnt in Porters scrummaging which yielded 4 penalties. The NZ scrum coach remarked that the ref spent every scrum looking at Porter and not at NZ front row. Kudos, thats clever.


The fact we got within one score and went out attacking in their 22 shows we were right up for it. Particularly given NZ were so much better than SA in the final (except for the red).


Hats off to SA. But the idea that SA are a match for the great NZ team of the 2010s is ludicrous. SA were not the best team in there pool in both 2029 and 2023. They are average in between world cups. They have lost in 4 out of 5 matches against one opponent. Sorry but there it is.


(Anyone can spot a troll, using personal abuse against a person’s opinion being a pretty reliable indicator.)

35 Go to comments
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