Dorothy Wall’s road to recovery
When Dorothy Wall returned to action in the 59th minute of Exeter Chiefs Women’s game against Harlequins at Sandy Park, it marked the end of a near seven-month journey back to fitness following a devastating Achilles injury.
The devastation was not the pain of rupturing her Achilles – as there was none – but the realisation that this influential Ireland international was going to miss the Rugby World Cup. The women in green had not qualified for the 2021 tournament, so this would have been the first time Wall would have been able to play on the world stage.
In an extensive interview in front of the Chiefs’ cameras, the 25-yesr-old revealed the details of her road to recovery and the joy of running back on the pitch to rejoin her club teammates for the first time since February.
Wall pulled up with the injury in Ireland’s last Six Nations game against Scotland. The shock of seeing this superstrong athlete unable to get to her feet unaided was shared by the crowd and the TV audience alike, but Wall had already had a sense that something was going to go wrong in the game.
“When we were in the tunnel and going out to the pitch, I just had a feeling. It was the last game before the World Cup, it has been such a build up to get there, and this was probably the last time things could go wrong. I just had a bad feeling and I was like, ‘Oh, just forget it and get on with it’, but I was right.”
Wall had been in fine form ahead of her injury. She had already become a firm favourite with the Chiefs faithful for her commanding physical presence on the field, all topped off with a hot pink scrum-cap. (As an aside, she now has a pair of trainers to match.)
She was a shoo-in for Ireland’s World Cup squad and even as Wall was taken off the field on the medical buggy that day, she was not giving up on making that dream a reality.
“At the start I was like, ‘Oh, you know what, I'm driven, I'm a good athlete, so I'll get back in four months. I'll get back for the World Cup. No-one was really saying anything back to me because what are you meant to say to me in that moment? But it was the doctor who said, ‘You're not back in four months. You're not making this World Cup on the pitch.’ I just started bawling.”
Wall was fortunate that she had a medical team to match her determination. Her surgeon in Ireland had her walking from the day after her operation, albeit in a boot. With the IRFU’s approval, she then worked with Achilles specialist physiotherapist David McCrea in Dublin in tandem with the medical team back in Exeter: physio Ken Kabongo, head of athletic performance Daniel Rix and rehab specialist Oliver Newey, all combing to get Wall back on the pitch ahead of time.
“Six-and-a-half months is good going, but I got back because I work hard, the people around me are good.”
Wall added: “I think people expected me to be distraught the whole time, but I've had a lot of sports psychology and got a very good mother who I talk to a lot, which I think is important. I kind of closed the door on the World Cup very early, so I had nearly dealt with it before it happened, and I was so focused on myself and my rehab that I wasn't too bad.”
Alongside her rehab, including the endlessly watchable video of her hip-thrusting six reps of 270kg, Wall popped up on the BBC and Ireland’s RTE offering World Cup analysis. And there were happy photos of her when she sneaked into Ireland’s changing room at Franklin’s Gardens after their win over Spain took them into the quarter-finals.
“I had a lot of purpose in that way…and once the World Cup ended, I was running. For any athlete who's rehabbing a long-term injury, that is massive. When you can actually move your body again and run, that's huge.”
A radiologist off the pitch, Wall likes evidence-based advice, and she challenged her rehab team to persuade her why she could not get back to play earlier. Rix and Newey bore the brunt of her enthusiasm and managed to keep her on track before they all agreed she was ready, but she still needed to get selected.
“I knew I was medically cleared to play. Then Robbo (Emily Robinson) and I ended up talking to Steve (Salvin) about lineouts and stuff and he said it really casually as he was drawing something on the whiteboard. He was like, ‘Oh yeah, you'll play on the weekend.’ I was just so buzzing and telling everyone, and they were so excited too. It was so good, but my mum was like, ‘What? We've booked to come to Sale!’”
The Wall family may have missed her return to the field in person, but 2,300 fans witnessed her run back onto the field. Long-term injury returners are much celebrated at Sandy Park by players, staff and fans alike.
“You do the same thing for five months and then suddenly you're running and suddenly you're doing contact and suddenly you're playing. It happens really quickly at the end, which is the weird thing.
“I was really nervous that morning. My whole body was just nervous. I was just like vibrating with this energy to get back. Once you're actually back in it, you're like, ‘Yeah, I know how to do this and I'm going to enjoy it.’ When I came on, I had a massive smile on my face and I wasn't nervous at all. I was just ready to make an impact.”