George Williams column: Warrington Wolves skipper ready for comeback

The Challenge Cup final is almost here and it’s been the longest six or seven weeks of my life getting fit and ready to go.

I’ve been running for the past three or four weeks and the recovery from my ankle injury has been going really well.

Obviously, it’s a race to get to the final. I need to give a big shout out to the performance staff at Warrington, Nick Murphy the physio, Ade Gardner [the head of performance]. They’ve been brilliant in getting me back to where I want to be.

We’ve maximised everything we can. We’re on a programme whereby we’re shaving off three to four weeks off a normal recovery time.

A little bit has been ‘trial and error’, trying things to see how I react but I’ve been reacting really well. It’s the most professional I’ve ever been in my life really, just doing everything I can.

You can also get a mini pre-season in. When you’re playing week in, week out it’s hard to maximise gym time because you’re sore, you’ve got niggles and knocks, so I’ve been able to smash the gym for five weeks to get some improvements.

I was gutted to get injured but the silver lining is hopefully I’m fresh for the back-end of the year.

The thing that makes me really happy is going home to my kids, so while I don’t get the same love of my job when not playing, that’s been great. It puts it in perspective too, it’s been difficult not playing but the kids make me smile. I’m injured but I have two healthy kids.