Tom Johnstone: Perseverance

“The first few weeks were tough. You have to get your head around the fact that your season is over, and it is not an easy process to go through."

It was all going so well for Tom Johnstone. 

Momentum was building and he was catching the eye of some influential people in the game. 

For a player who spent much of his teens not catching the eye, things were moving in the right direction for the Wakefield Trinity winger.

One normally sees Johnstone racing a desperate gang of covering defenders towards a corner flag. 

Time seems to stop, for a moment, as he hovers in mid-air, ball in one hand, before real time kicks back in and he’s launched into the perimeter hoardings. Try or no try. 

The image of Johnstone you don’t see is the one on the other side of the touchline that he spends his professional life so keenly trying to avoid. 

That’s the one when he’s frustrated at another extended spell out of the game with injury. 

Welcome to life as a Super League winger, where narrow windows of opportunity present themselves and the fine line between success and failure is both literal and metaphorical. 

For Johnstone, that has been the story of his career.

A stellar 2018 campaign, in which he scored 24 tries, saw his inevitable graduation to Wayne Bennett’s England set-up.

Last season then started in familiar fashion, with six tries in as many games helping him to joint-top of the try scoring charts. 

In March, the momentum came to a shuddering halt.

The knee injury he picked up against Hull FC would not only end his season, but it also sparked a spell out of the game which not only tested Johnstone physically, but mentally as well. 

It was the second time in the space of three years that he would spend an extended period of time in rehabilitation and isolation. 

Some rugby players do not suffer one injury of such magnitude during their career, so for Johnstone to have twice had his season ended, at the age of only 24, feels cruel.

“The mental aspect of recovery is more difficult than the physical side,?? he said.

“When you’re fit you just want to play, and you hate training. 

“But when I was injured, all I wanted to do was train.??

When superleague.co.uk spoke to Johnstone this time last year he was focused on improving his professionalism. 

While away with England he saw how “advanced the set-up was??, so the renewed commitment to his game was designed to reduce his chances of picking up an injury, like the one that ruined his 2017 season.  

Johnstone added: “I came into 2019 wanting to build on 2018. 

“I had spoken to Wayne Bennett about the things I could do to improve my game, so to get injured again really hit me hard. 

“The first few weeks were tough. You have to get your head around the fact that your season is over, and it is not an easy process to go through. 

“ACL injuries are tough physically - you are constantly tired. 

“But mentally there is no let up. I was drained. 

“Having to get up every morning and go to the gym on your own for hours on end just chips away at you. 

“The only thing that helped was that I had dealt with injury before, so it was an easier process to go through this time around.??

It is a testament to Johnstone’s mental resilience that he is back fit ahead of the 2020 season, although it is clear when speaking to him how challenging the last 10 months have been.

When @WTrinityRL faced Leeds in round 4, @TomJohnstone01 scored a hat-trick in just 22 minutes 😯🔥

He won't be playing on Friday, but those tries ?? #NewBeginnings pic.twitter.com/ajqwBhQ14f
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) June 5, 2019

But then, he is no stranger to adversity.

At 17, he contemplated giving up on his dream of playing in Super League following various rejections. 

He eventually got a chance at Hunslet Hawks - but once they released him from their scholarship programme, university seemed the obvious choice.

Johnstone said: “When I got let go from Hunslet I figured I had to go back to just playing rugby for the fun of it. 

“I thought I might have to make a decision between playing rugby and going to university.

“My career was not going anywhere, and I thought about packing it in.

“Out of the blue I then had a call from Leeds Rhinos asking me to go for a training session – but the day before Wakefield had offered me a deal, which I signed on the spot.??

For Johnstone, the perseverance paid off and ahead of the 2020 campaign it is clear he feels he has a lot to prove.

Growing up in a “tough?? military household in Germany has certainly helped him when it comes to setting standards and meeting expectations.

“My competitiveness came from my dad who was in the army,?? he said.

“He pushed me to succeed.

“If it was a sports day, he would prep me beforehand.

"If my running patterns were off, he would tell me to fix it.

“There was a lot of camaraderie, friendship and close bonds with everyone in the army community and I lived in that environment until I was six years old.

“From what I can remember, it was pretty tough. 

“My older brother was around 10 at the time and he had to look after my mum a lot.

“It was quite weird - we were just in army barracks, so everyone knew everyone.

“It wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I first picked up a ball. 

“When I first came I over to England, I didn’t really know what rugby was. 

“I had always loved sport and I was always pretty quick - but knew nothing about rugby.

“I went to training and saw seven-year-old’s smashing each other and it was a bit of a shock.

“But I loved it and it has just stuck with me.??

The winger’s love of the sport remains intact today, and he is hopeful that things will go much better on the pitch this season, for him and for Wakefield.

He explained: “My motivation this season doesn’t come from anything in particular; I’m just looking forward to training again and being out on the pitch.

“I want to go and enjoy myself and get the love back. 

“You can start to hate the game when you’re injured but, for me, it is just about performing as well as I can.

“I know every man in our squad is motivated to ensure we have a good season. 

“We don’t want to finish where almost every pundit has predicted us to finish.

“Every year people seem to expect us to perform poorly, and every year our aim is to prove people wrong. 

“That will be no different in this campaign.?? 

Wakefield Trinity were right in the playoff picture at the time of Johnstone’s season ending injury in 2019.

He could well be the man to get them purring again.

By Oli Lathrope