Craig Halkett eager to avoid a third European disaster with Hearts
Centre-back’s experience on the Continent can only get better
Trudging disconsolately up tunnels has become an unwanted habit for Craig Halkett. During the last two seasons, the Hearts defender has been forced off the field early by injuries in St Gallen, Riga, Dundee and Airdrie. He has managed only 23 appearances in that period and is entitled to feel somewhat cheated out of game time by sheer physical misfortune.
He is now recovered from hamstring and knee problems and is back in the team at a critical time at Tynecastle Park. Hearts need points against Ross County on Saturday to move themselves off the bottom of the Premiership table. Looking beyond that, they are in Azerbaijan for a UEFA Conference League tie against Dinamo Minsk next week before a difficult league fixture away to Aberdeen three days later.
The Dinamo match holds understandable significance for Halkett. The 29-year-old centre-back needs no reminding that the only two European outings of his career to date ended disastrously. He lasted only seven minutes for Hearts against FC Zurich in St Gallen back in August 2022, and a month later in Latvia’s capital he played for just 22 minutes against RFS. Injuries have hitherto stifled what should be a career high and he is eager to change the narrative.
“Massively, that was one of the main reasons I wanted to sign for a team like Hearts - to compete in Europe and in semi-finals and finals,” said Halkett. “The first year that we got into Europe is where I picked up the start of the injuries and missed a lot of it. It was hard sitting watching some of the nights at Tynecastle and away in these nice countries playing against some top teams. So to be involved in it this year will be really good and I'm really looking forward to it.
“It was both games [in 2022]. The first game was the Europa League qualifier, I came off right at the very start of the game. Probably because it was European football, I worked that wee bit harder and probably rushed back a wee bit [from a hamstring issue] because I was that desperate to be involved in the European games. I've come off again and then ended up missing the rest of the campaign, so it was disappointing. This year I'm in a better place and I'm ready to go.”
Halkett’s header in last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at St Mirren proved to be Hearts’ last under Steven Naismith. The head coach lost his job less than 24 hours later, with the club’s B team coach Liam Fox placed in interim charge. Halkett knows he faces competition to keep his place with Frankie Kent, Kye Rowles, Stephen Kingsley and Daniel Oyegoke all vying for positions in central defence.
The former Livingston player is eager to cherish every moment on the field after missing so much football throughout the last two years. Twelve months out with a cruciate ligament injury were by far the worst. “When I did my knee it was - on and off the park - probably the hardest one to deal with,” he recalled. “Just finding out that day that you're going to be out of action for nine, 10, 11 months was the hardest. With that sort of injury, it's never just: ‘You're out nine months, 10 months, then back training and it's plain sailing from there.’
“If you look all over the world where people do that injury, there's a lot of hiccups on the way and unfortunately I was one of them when I had to get a kind of tidy up operation in the March. It's just getting over that. Once I did, thankfully now everything has been good. I worked hard with the physios and sports scientists and I'm in a good place. Hopefully the injury troubles I've had are behind me.
“When you look across world football, there are players who get that injury. I know it's a lot better nowadays with the surgeons and the sports scientists and the help you can get, but people maybe don't come back from that sort of injury. Once you get back, I'm really thankful for that. You just come in every day and work as hard as you can because you just never know what can happen in football.
“You speak to a few people, other players who have done it. At the time, unfortunately we had [Liam] Boycie and Beni [Baningime] who were going through the same thing and they were a wee bit further ahead in their rehab than I was. So you can learn off the different stages of what was good and what didn't work. It's just trying to get as much information as you can to make sure everything goes as well as it can.”
There is no shortcut for proper rehabilitation. It is gruelling and exhausting, as Halkett can testify. A recent return to the starting line-up is reward for months of hard toil and sweat, not to mention mental endurance. “I think, from the outside, maybe people that aren't involved in football or play football maybe don't realise,” he explained. “You know you've got a lot of time to sit and think, you don't play football for a long time, so there's a lot of time that's not taken for granted. It's just coming in and realising where you are and what sort of facilities you've got. You realise how much of a privileged position you're in. It's just about hard work when that injury comes.”
It is often stated by footballers that a long-term injury lay-off requires the same time again to restore them to optimum fitness and form. “I think it's different. Maybe if you tweak your hamstring and are out for two weeks, but you've been playing for the last five months, it's not going to take you that long. Maybe a game or two. But I think, if you're out for a long time, it's not so much the fitness because that's a thing that you can get as fit as you want on the training park.
“It's just being in a match, the match environment and the things that happen in a match. More so mentally and just positionally, just the things that you want to get comfortable with, things that just happen second nature rather than you having to think about it when you're back. It's more those sorts of things that take a wee bit of time. If you've been out for a year or 18 months, it does take that a wee bit longer. I've been back in, had a full pre-season, played loads of minutes in friendlies and the last couple of weeks have been good. I'm feeling like I'm getting there.”
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