Hospital visits put knee injury into perspective for Collingwood defender Alan Toovey Collingwood defender Alan Toovey is rapt to be back in training after recovering from knee surgery. ONCE a week Alan Toovey goes to the Epworth Hospital for a reality check. As part of his university studies in sports science, the Collingwood defender began visiting the hospital to help patients in the rehabilitation centre. In recent months this weekly visit helped put Toovey's world into perspective. "It was a good eye-opener," Toovey explains. I guess when you walk in there and everyone says, 'How's your knee going?' I'm like, 'Yeah good, I should be running in a couple of weeks'. Then you see people who have been hit by a car and have taken six years to get to the point where they can jog a bit or other people who have lost legs and are now trying to walk with prosthetic limbs. My injury is nothing compared to what these people are going through, it kind of sets it back and puts it in perspective to see people who are going for four or five years just to get one leg to straighten a bit. For them something like that changes their life, just simple things like being able to get up and down stairs. Toovey's life changed on Anzac Day this year when in the final minutes of the game against Essendon his left knee buckled. "I turned to get the ball like you would at training 100 times, every session you would turn like that and even in the warm-up you would do that," he says. I felt pain straight away and it was the most painful thing I have ever felt so I knew something wasn't right. Alan Toovey in agony after hurting his knee on Anzac Day. An early return was immediately ruled out so Toovey had a traditional knee reconstruction followed by a clean-up of his shoulder, with everything aimed at being ready for Round 1, 2014. "It was a bit weird because when I did my knee I had six weeks off and then I had my shoulder done as well so by the time I was off crutches, my arm was in a sling which was a bit different," he says. He had plenty of people to turn to for advice at the Westpac Centre with five of his teammates - Luke Ball, Lachlan Keeffe, Nathan Brown, Brent Macaffer and Andrew Krakouer - all having been through knee reconstructions. Every different stage they would be telling me what to expect, if this was right or not, so it was great to have people talking you through it. Adding further stress to the situation for Toovey, who'd played 114 games since being promoted off the rookie list in 2007, was the fact he was in the middle of contract negotiations when he went down. I remember Walshy (then football manager Geoff Walsh) came in and said, 'We're not going to change anything, we know you will be right to play next year so it (a three-year contract offer) is still on the table'. That was a huge relief that Collingwood showed faith in me. Otherwise I was thinking, 'There goes the last few years of effort trying to build it up'. So when I got that done I felt I was more focused on looking forward rather than worrying about what was going to happen. Adjusting to life away from the game was "pretty strange" for the 26-year-old. "The first thing I noticed when you are watching the game, it seems like the game goes so quickly," he says. You sit down and watch it and it's like, 'Gee, the game is almost over'. When you're playing you're so in it yet when you're watching in the stands you don't have to pay attention the whole time and there are people around you and things going on that you don't focus so much on the game and it seems to go so quickly. Collingwood defender Alan Toovey battles unseasonal rain during pre-season training. He made one visit to the coaches' box and vowed never to return again. "I probably picked the worst match of the year to go up there and watch," he says. It was the Queen's Birthday (game against Melbourne) and in the first half we were only six points up and it was one of the worst games of footy for the year. Blokes were just dropping the footy, kicking it over everyone's head or out of bounds on the full. Bucks was absolutely ropeable and I thought, 'Footy is not much fun when it's like this'. Even though we ended up winning the game, it wasn't a great day. I know I won't be a coach, I don't want to be a coach. To break up the monotony of rehab, Toovey went to Europe for a month where he took in the Ashes Test at Old Trafford in Manchester, travelled through Italy and Spain with friends before doing a Contiki boat cruise around the Greek Islands. "It was pretty good fun and I came back with a tan while all of the guys were pale," he says with a smile. Importantly, he also came back with a refreshed mindset and ready for day one of pre-season training. "I was actually excited to get out there and train again which is probably the first time I've felt like that," he says. Toovey ran a 2km time-trial in mid-December which was "not far off" his time from the previous year. He did some kicking in the warm-ups pre-Christmas and expects to slot into full training this month. It will be a different team when he returns given the departure of premiership teammates Heath Shaw, Dale Thomas and Darren Jolly. "The good thing when I was out was that blokes like Ben Sinclair and Marley Williams came in and played well down back, so firstly I have got to get my spot back," Toovey says. With 'Heater' (Shaw) gone it is going to be different down there but the group changes every year. We have lost a lot of blokes who have played a lot of games, but there has been competition for spots for a while and you see the young blokes know this, just in the way they have been training and pushing themselves. It puts pressure on everybody.