All Blacks hooker Dane Coles has opened up about the mental battles he has faced in his long stint on the sidelines with injuries, admitting he sometimes wondered whether he'd get back on the field.
Coles told Radio Sport this morning he had thoughts of whether his battle back to the black jersey was worth it.
"I've had a pretty frustrating couple of years," he said.
"You have times where you're like, 'is this really worth it?' or, 'is this going to come right?"
Coles last took the field last November against France in Paris but his game was cut short due to an ACL injury.
The knee injury came after the Hurricanes skipper had already been dealing with concussion issues earlier in the year, resulting in him missing the entire British and Irish Lions Tour series.
To make matters worse, the 31-year-old was then hit with a calf injury following surgery on his injured knee which saw any chances of a return for the Hurricanes this year ruled out.
Despite missing an entire Super Rugby season Coles has been named in the All Blacks' Rugby Championship squad, although coach Steve Hansen admits there's still a few more steps to go before Coles returns to the international stage.
"He's still not ready to play - we're thinking late September, early October," Hansen told 1 NEWS last week.
"He will come back through the Mitre 10, and play various amounts of minutes there. Once he's had enough rugby, he'll come to us."
Hansen said there was no point rushing the process either.
"We just need to get him fit, he needs to get a bit more intensity into his training and that's going to take a wee while. We've just got to get him running fit so we can get the old Colsey back.
"We've just got to be patient - we're expecting to see him back on the park late September."
Wellington begin their provincial campaign on August 19 against Otago, meaning Coles could get as many as eight games under his belt before his projected All Blacks return.
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