No op for Kavanagh as Halifax forward targets summer return

It had looked certain the 31 year old former Siddal junior, who joined his hometown club from Hull KR at the end of 2018, would need to go under the knife after being stretchered off in the opening half of Fax’s pre-season game against Hull FC in early January.

But after a series of scans and a visit to see a specialist, that idea is off the table, at least for now.

“I went to see the specialist last week and, at this moment in time, it looks like I won’t need an operation, which is obviously good news,” said Kavanagh.

“There is a bit of damage around the hip, but he’s recommended that we try and get through it by rehab rather than having surgery, which could potentially cause other problems.

“We’re going to do five weeks of rehab, then I’ll have another MRI scan and see what’s going on at that point.

“If everything goes to plan, he hopes I’ll be playing again in four or five months.

“There’s probably still a few question marks, but for now we’ll get stuck into the rehab and hope it all goes well.”

Kavanagh recognises his injury was potentially career threatening and said he had mentally confronted the idea of enforced retirement.

“It was a posterior dislocation, which is apparently the kind of thing they see in car crashes, where people hit their knee on the dashboard,” said Kavanagh, who was taken to hospital under sedation before having the joint reset under general anaesthetic.

“The worst case scenario in that situation is a hip replacement, which would have meant retirement for me.

“Mine was low impact though, which probably limited the damage, and although it didn’t feel like it at the time, they got it back in relatively quickly.

“It felt like it was happening in slow motion; I got my leg trapped underneath me and I knew I couldn’t get it out, so I knew what was happening, I was kind of just waiting for it to go.”