Former Union player amputates finger to speed up recovery for NRL season

A former rugby union age-grade star has taken the rather extreme step of having his finger amputated so that he can make a faster return to fitness ahead of the beginning of the NRL season.

South Sydney Rabbitohs backrow Angus Crichton, formerly of Super Rugby franchise the Waratahs, has the finger removed to aid a faster recovery to fitness, despite the fact that he is playing his final season for the club.

He moves to the Roosters for the 2019 season.

According to NRL.com, Crichton "ruptured a tendon in the middle finger of his left hand during his stint in the club's under-20s system and has been troubled by the injury since."

Rabbitohs general manager Shane Richardson confirmed the 21-year-old's surgery on Thursday.

"He's had it partially amputated. He's had a problem with that finger for three years now so he needed to do something about it," Richardson told NRL.com.

"Another reconstruction would have taken him between eight to 10 weeks to get over. This is going to take two weeks," he said.

"It just became so frustrating for him that every off-season he had to have a reconstruction, so he opted to partially amputate his finger. He had this option 12 months ago, and he chose not to do it.

"Now he has chosen to go down this path, a decision he made himself."

He recently announced that he was moving to the Sydney Roosters.

The 6'2, 103kg forward was a standout union schoolboy prospect, playing centre for the Australian Schoolboys. However, early into his fledgling career at the Waratahs, he was told he wouldn't be considered for Super Rugby until he turned 23. The then 18-year-old made the switch to League where he rose quickly to become part of the senior squad.

He is now considered one of the NRL's brightest young talents. According to his club's website: "Plenty of pundits have labelled Angus Crichton as one of the rising stars of the game, predicting big things to come from the boy from Young after a breakout 2017. Scoring 7 tries in his 22 games last season, Crichton has proved to be a tearaway backrower with a high work ethic."

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