Dragons fly half and full back Josh Lewis is happy to be back on the field after emerging from a hardest period in his career following his year-long lay-off, writes Gavin Barrett.
The 28-year-old has made a resurgence over recent weeks moving position to full back and impressed with his kicking game from the back in last week’s victory over Benetton in Italy.
Lewis has recently returned from his long-term ACL injury and is grateful to be back out playing for Dragons after the darkest period in his career.
“It’s just nice to be back on the field after such a long time out and throwing the ball around,” he smiled.
“It was the darkest patch in my career. I’ve done it before, about five years previous I did my ACL, but this time I did it pretty good, it was pretty much a full 12 months out.
“You can feel like you’re on your own, but as soon as you start seeing results and you’re back on the field running, you do feel like you’re back in with the team.”
He continued: “It’s just about getting out of that dark period and it has gone successfully. I’m back on the field and I am happy.”
The Merthyr-born product felt he was almost ready to make his comeback back in March, but due to lockdown he had to wait a lot longer - something he believes did him and his knee the world of good.
“It’s feeling 100%, touch wood, I haven’t had any problems with it at the moment,” he said. “I picked up a little bit of a niggle on my hamstring when we came back from the first lockdown, but the knee is solid.
“When we went into lockdown, I was pretty much ready to return and to play, I just had to tick off a few more things in rehab, but I was near enough fit to go.
Lewis continued: “I was looking forward to maybe playing a couple of games at the end of the season and then of course lockdown hit so I was a bit gutted, to be honest.
“But, in the long-term, it probably did me a world of good not to play those games just to give my knee that extra bit of rest.”
In recent times Dragons have often selected Jordan Williams at full back, a speedster with fantastic feet and can put fear into any defence with ball in hand.
Lewis jokingly admits he may not have the speed and feet of Williams, but he can certainly add quality to the side with his own abilities from full back.
“Last week we talked about our kicking game and that it had to be spot on against Benetton, we talked about turning them and Dean just hammered that home,” said Lewis.
“I feel like I have a good boot on me to stay in the kicking battles but when it is ready to come out of that then I can offer attacking threat as well.”
Looking ahead to the weekend, Dragons will be making the trip to Scotland where they will face Glasgow at Scotstoun.
Lewis insists the kicking game and the artificial pitch will be huge factors, with his side excited about the challenge ahead and hopefully winning on the road again.
“It was nice to get that away win, confidence in the camp now is pretty high after that so we are looking forward to going into this week and hopefully we can win on the road again,” said the former Bath fly half.
“We train on a fast track every day at Ystrad so we know what’s coming, it will be a fast-old game, but they have changed their tactics in more recent times too.
“They used to run everything, but they’ve more of a kicking strategy now as well. We just have to stick in there, stay in the kicking battle and then when the time is right, come out of that and go on the attack.
“We just have to play our own game, get our tactics right and have our own house in order so hopefully we can get that victory.”
We train on a fast track every day at Ystrad so we know what’s coming, it will be a fast-old game...
