Craig Halkett admits he burst into tears when he was told his campaign was over.
The Hearts defender won’t be back in action until next season after injuring his cruciate knee ligament on Christmas Eve. Halkett had to be replaced early during a 2-2 draw at Dundee United after an innocuous coming together with Glenn Middleton as he shepherded the ball out for a goal kick.
Scans revealed the extent of the damage, which came as a crushing blow to Halkett, who had already missed a good chunk of the season after a hamstring injury. The 27-year-old went under the knife in the summer following Hearts’ Scottish Cup final defeat to Rangers, which meant he was playing catch up over pre-season. Since then, it’s been one injury after another which has forced him to write off the remainder of this term and focus on getting back fit in time for another fresh start in August.
“This season has been a nightmare for me,” he said. “I got an ankle operation after the Scottish Cup final last year and that put me behind the rest of the boys in pre-season. I got back and did my hamstring, which wasn’t great. Then I did it a second time and I was out again.
“In the game at Tannadice, I was just shielding the ball and I felt a slight wobble in my knee. It wasn’t agony or anything like it, but I knew something wasn’t right, like I had hyperextended it. It was a movement I would do plenty of times in a game.
“So I’d never have imagined, at any point, that I would be facing nine months out because of my cruciate. The week after I got the scan back, I was in the car when the physio called to tell me the season was over.
“I burst into tears and it took a few days to sink in because I’ve never had a serious injury like this before. It had been stop-start, but I knew I would be back in four or six weeks, which wasn’t the end of the world.
“But trying to come to terms with the news it was eight or nine months was hard to take. It’s now three weeks since the surgery and everything has gone really well.
“I have been able to get off of the crutches, which is the first milestone and I can now move a bit more freely. I just have to take it one step at a time because I have a long road ahead of me.”
It’s not just Halkett who is facing a lengthy spell in the Hearts treatment room. Liam Boyce suffered the same injury back in August, while Craig Gordon was another Tayside casualty in that same meeting with United, suffering a horror double leg break.
Boyce could be back before the end of the season, while Gordon was in the gym just a month after his own operations. Halkett hasn’t seen bad luck like it on the injury front, but has praised his teammates for returning the Jambos to third place despite losing several big names.
“We have had a horror season with injuries,” he told the Scottish Sun. “I can’t remember one like it. But it shows how well the other boys have been playing with where we are in the league. When you weigh up the number of games we had to play at the start of the season with European ties and the number of injuries we had, we’ve done well. It’s been a great run since the World Cup. We’d love to get third and Europe is the target again.”
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