Bill Tupou opens up on struggles after serious injury

Rupturing a patella tendon doesn’t exactly sound like the most pleasant of injuries.

And, for Wakefield Trinity centre Bill Tupou, that is most definitely the case after suffering just that in June 2021.

It was a local defeat to the Castleford Tigers, but the result was made worse by confirmation that Tupou would be out for the rest of the season.

And, it’s only been in the past week that he has been able to run on an Alter-G treadmill, which uses a pressurised air chamber to uniformly reduce gravitational load and body weight in precise 1% increments,

That, in turn, allows patients and athletes to move unrestricted and pain-free – which has been necessary for Tupou following the injury.

And, he talked to the Wakefield club about the mental struggles he has had since injury.

“At the start when I thought I was going to be out for a while, in my head i was like I could spend more time with my family and seeing my little boy and see him grow up – I think that was a positive to take out of it,” Tupou said.

“You can see all the negatives, but having my wife there to talk to whenever I was down or having a bad day, was necessary.

“it was good to talk to family about it and get it off my chest.”

🧠 | Ahead of @WTComFoundation's Teammate session on Monday, Bill Tupou & Jack Croft discuss their mental health after battling back from injury ✊#TrinityTogether ⚜️ | #Teammate 🤝 pic.twitter.com/XFi4ZwmLGg

— Wakefield Trinity (@WTrinityRL) November 27, 2021