‘I had 11 fractures in my face’: Stefan Ratchford broke his eye socket, jaw and cheek bone in a horror collision on the pitch in July. Remarkably, he wants to return this season

The good news, Stefan Ratchford was told, was that he did not have a bleed on his brain. But then came the bad news from his CT scan.

‘The specialist’s words were, ‘I’ve not seen anything this bad for a long time’,’ recalls the Warrington Wolves captain. ‘He said, ‘You’ve got 10 fractures in your face. I can’t believe this is from one incident. It’s like what we would see from a car crash’.’

Ratchford’s list of broken bones included his eye socket, cheek bone and jaw. An 11th facial fracture, his palate, was discovered during surgery. And all of this from one accidental elbow to the face during Warrington’s Super League win at St Helens on July 19 — the date of both Ratchford and his wife Kirsty’s birthday.

‘I haven’t watched the incident back yet,’ admits the 36-year-old, sitting with Mail Sport in a meeting room at Warrington’s training ground. ‘From what I can gather, James Bell has carried the ball and he has tried to spin out of a tackle. As he has spun, I’ve come in from the other way and he’s hit me with his elbow, flush on the cheek bone, so it’s a double whammy.

‘I’ve hit the deck, rolled over, then I tried to get back up. Your first thought is, ‘Get back in the defensive line’ because if you are down, you are leaving your team a man down and there is going to be a gap somewhere. But my team-mate Luke Yates grabbed hold of me and said, ‘Don’t get up’, then the doctor and physio came on and took over.