The Swansea City captain had only minutes before headed the Swans into the lead against their League One opponents before going down under challenge and instantly knowing that something was wrong.<\/p>\n
Initial fears suggested he may be out for the season before reductions to three months and then six to eight weeks meant good news although the frustration of having to sit by and watch the promotion push will be evident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was my ligaments straight away,\u201dMonk told Wales on Sunday. \u201cWhen they\u2019re intact, there\u2019s a solid feeling when you bend your knee, an end point when you bend it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they were testing it in the changing room it was very lax and that\u2019s when I started to fear the worst because the knee shouldn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first thought had been that it wasn\u2019t as bad as my old injury, the pain wasn\u2019t the same and I couldn\u2019t walk, it was ridiculous.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then you start worrying and I couldn\u2019t get it out of my head that it could have been it because there was no way of knowing until I had the scan the following day. Those 24 hours were a nightmare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst, though, is when you\u2019re in the machine for the scan. It\u2019s just you, no-one talking you through what they\u2019re seeing and you\u2019re left with all these worst-case scenarios running through your head.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes half an hour, but it seems like a lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was prepared for the worst \u2013 so the relief was huge when they said it was my medial ligaments.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people are surprised by the fact I\u2019ve said I could be back in six weeks, but I think it\u2019s a realistic target,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s what the surgeon (former England rugby star Jonathan Webb) has told me and I trust him \u2013 he saved my career last time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m the type who will work doubly hard just to make sure I\u2019m not caught out when I do come back \u2013 and that I can play my part for the rest of the season.”<\/p>\n
The positive news for Monk though is that he can now be present at the birth of his child – pleasing his heavily pregnant fiance \u201cShe was worried I\u2019d miss the birth because I\u2019d be playing somewhere halfway across the country<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have that worry now I guess, but the baby coming does give me an extra motivation to get back fit and to my best because I have a family to think about now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Swansea City captain had only minutes before headed the Swans into the lead against their League One opponents before going down under challenge and instantly knowing that something was wrong. Initial fears suggested he may be out for the season before reductions to three months and then six to eight weeks meant good news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}