Sinclair suffered torn ligaments between his C6 and C7 vertebrae and will have a bulging disc for the rest of his life, but it could have been much worse.

“I was very lucky,  it was only millimetres in it at the end of the day so I was pretty lucky to get away with it,” he said this week after scoring a try in his return to first grade last week.

“A lot of things cross your mind when you are laying on a hospital bed with a back brace on.

“I was always confident that I would get back to play when the specialist said ‘don’t let it hamper your lifestyle’ .

“It was more mentally getting back out there, getting your head in the right position and getting a few bumps and seeing whether those demons came back.

“So far, so good, but it was pretty scary there for a while.”

Regarded as one of the toughest and most courageous players at the Pickers, Sinclair said Saturday’s game had removed the last of the doubts.

“It was good to get out there for my first game of first grade. I’ve played a few games in reserves.

“It was more about getting my confidence back after the injury last year more than anything.

“The coaching staff were happy to let me take my time with it and come back when I was ready.

“Any footy injury is frustrating when you’re not playing but it did take a while to get it out of my head and get the confidence to play, it’s gone now.”

Sinclair is looking forward to playing his part in the Pickers return to finals action and pushing for the title.

He said there was no better way to return to winning form, after three straight losses,  than against a red-hot Kurri Kurri team in front of a huge crowd.

“We are really looking forward to getting out there on the weekend, because we feel if we get one win then it will snowball and we will be right back on the front foot again,” he said.

“We built the pre-season off our defence and it showed in three out of the first four games. That was the backbone of our wins.

”We’ve sort of gone away from that in the last couple of weeks.

“Lapses when we had an opportunity to put a team under pressure have hurt us. We would come up with an error or we won’t defend a penalty and let other teams back into the game.

“Just handling the momentum swings from other teams more than anything is what we’ve struggled with over the past few weeks.

“We spoke about it on Tuesday night, just little lapses in games over the last three matches has pretty much what cost us.

“There’s no better way to return to form with a win against Kurri. 

“We owe them a few, I think they have given us a touch up for the past two years, all four games they’ve got us.

“It’s a massive change from the old ground and at Coronation. It just brings that vibe to it, everyone turns up wants to play footy  and with the crowd right on top of you we should be dishing out better performances than we have been.”