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    Siokapesi Palu had surgery five weeks before the World Cup. She’s already back on the field

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    By Frances Howe

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    Siokapesi Palu had surgery five weeks before the World Cup. She’s already back on the field

    The squadleft Australia on August 11 without her. Three days later, she was told she’d be allowed to join up with them.

    Last Saturday, just seven weeks after surgery, she made her tournament debut in Brighton for the last game of the group stage. She captained the Wallaroos in front of 30,443 spectators (enough for the stadium to run out of beer) and royalty (Catherine, Princess of Wales).

    “Sometimes I don’t have words to explain it because personally, I don’t know how I was able to defeat the odds that were against me,” she said.

    Others weren’t as lucky. In the same game in Wellington in July, teammate and Olympic gold medallist Charlotte Caslick left the field with a fractured fibula and ruptured syndesmosis. Although there had been hope she’d recover in time for the World Cup, on the day the team was set to travel to England, Caslick said she wouldn’t be on the plane.

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