Southern Steel shooter and England international George Fisher. Photo: www.photosport.nz
Southern Steel shooter George Fisher could be robbed of a second season of netball with injury set backs delaying the international shooter's return to court.
The Steel suffered a major blow just weeks out from the start of last year's ANZ premiership, when Fisher was ruled out of the season after rupturing her ACL and fracturing her knee during a pre-season match.
Fisher, who has 22 Test caps for the England Roses, joined the Steel in 2021 and proved to be a lynchpin for them in the shooting end.
Fisher's rehab was going as well as expected until around August last year, when she was back in England.
"I just kept getting a real swollen knee so I went for a scan but they couldn't see what was wrong so I had to get keyhole surgery so the surgeon could just see what was going on and why I was having this constant swelling," Fisher said.
"It turned out that a piece of my cartilage had at some point just sort of died and had come away so I had a piece of cartilage about the size of a 20p piece just floating around the joint.
"They had to remove that and I had a couple of other things going on in there and they had to give it a good clean-up so I had to go through surgery around October, which has obviously set me back quite a bit."
When Fisher returned to England last year, her goal was to be ready for the international Quad Series this January.
"I went back into the England Roses programme and I've had access to the England netball physio and medical staff, and coaches etc."
But more than 13 months after her initial injury, Fisher is still not running.
The 25-year-old, who is still in England, is just starting to try to re-load her knee.
"It's quite tough not having that cartilage there and kind of figuring out how to reload it and my knee's quite temperamental."
Due to the nature of her injuries, doctors haven't been able to give her timeline of what to expect.
George Fisher playing for England. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
"It's such a unique injury, my knee is so up and down, which is quite frustrating but it's very much all up in the air at the moment with testing different things and seeing how the knee likes that loading, so we haven't got timeframes or dates.
"It's a tough one because I think my head and my heart is telling it one thing and my knee has got a little mind of its own."
Fisher said her first major injury had been a tough journey and it was difficult to watch last year's World Cup.
"It was a huge goal of mine to make the World Cup, I fell short of Commonwealth Games and I was like 'I really really want to make it' but I couldn't even put my name in the mix because of the injury.
"But I think when I watch netball now I kind of watch it from a different point of view. I obviously want to be on court and I'm a bit jealous that I'm not on court but I want my girls to do the best that they can do.
"I went through a phase where every time anyone landed I would literally cringe and it made me feel all clammy handed because I was like 'oh my knee could never do that' but I think I'm at a point where I can watch it now and I'm just watching netball instead of watching everyone's knees."
Fisher recently set up a coaching business with her New Zealand fiancé Brayden Inger, who played basketball for the Invercargill based Southland Sharks.
The pair are in the UK, where Inger has continued his basketball career.
"I think when you have a major injury and you can't do something that you love you still want to be involved and I find coaching is such an awesome way to kind of give the knowledge that you have back to young people so we do heaps of coaching. We go into the community and that's something I really enjoy ...it's been really nice."
It was hoped Fisher would rejoin her Steel team-mates in early February but that's been delayed.
"I just have a lot more touch points to medical staff over here so everything is just a little bit closer to me, which is cool so that's why we've kind of made that choice at the moment to leave me here while I'm in that phase of rehab so hopefully very soon."
Is she hopeful she might get on court for the Steel later in the season?
"I always hold that tiny wee bit of hope that I may even make a small bit of it but you just never know and with my injury. I had the aim to be playing Quad in January and then have a full Steel season but that's gone completely out of the window."
"It's really hard to even think that far in the future, at the moment I'm literally taking it week by week. Every Monday I'll go in and I'll do my tests and my sessions and see how it's tracking.
"I have that sliver of hope that I'm going to get over there and get on court at some point but I just really don't know."
Steel shooter Jennifer O'Connell Photo: www.photosport.nz Photosport Ltd 2018
The Steel, who had to scramble for a late replacement last year, languished at the bottom of the table after failing to pick up a single win.
This year the Steel had more time to find cover for Fisher when it became apparent her recovery was taking longer than expected.
In late January the franchise announced that former Steel player Jen O'Connell would be returning to the side to bolster the shooting ranks.
O'Connell, who suffered a season-ending knee injury herself in 2020, was a key member of the franchise, winning two premiership titles in 2017 and 2018.
The 1.93m shooter began rehab to return to the netball court, but when that did not work out O'Connell started picking up basketball again, a sport she played at high school and university.
Last year O'Connell played for Southern Hoiho in the Tauihi league, the domestic basketball competition.
A phone call to return to the Steel came completely out of the blue for the 26-year-old.
"But I am incredibly honoured to get this opportunity to pull on the pink and blue Steel kit again - it's really special given it's a chapter in my career I thought was finished," O'Connell said.
"It was definitely unexpected ...I haven't played netball or been in the high performance space for a long time and I know things have changed but I will be giving it my all for the team and our fans."
The Steel start their season on the 15th of April when they meet the Tactix in Christchurch.
