Forward Jonny Patton has taken another GIANT step in his comeback from a long-term knee injury, returning to full training this week.

While there is no timeline on his football comeback, Patton has been given the final medical clearance from his surgeon, eight months since tearing his ACL for the second time in round 21, 2014.

“He’s medically cleared me to play and train so that’s pretty much the final tick-off from him so now I can fully train for however long as I need and then start thinking about playing,” Patton told GIANTS TV.

“I’ve been training now for a while and I’m feeling really comfortable so I guess it’s just about whenever I feel right and my mind feels right to go out there.

“It’s just week-by-week. I don’t want to rush anything, I just want to get a really good training base first.

“But at the moment the boys seem pretty good out there without me so I might just sit back, relax and watch the show for a few weeks.”

In February, Patton travelled to the United States to work with sports rehabilitation specialist Bill Knowles in Philadelphia.

“I did a lot of stuff with Bill Knowles around different stuff with your legs; jumping and landing and a few different techniques you can use for when you are changing direction, landing or jumping. Things that you need to make second nature,” Patton said.

“It was a lot of technical stuff with him. It wasn’t so much a boot camp or anything like that, but it was definitely worth it.”

This is Patton’s second rehabilitation from an ACL injury on his right knee after originally injuring it in round three, 2013. But he said it feels completely different this time around.

“My rehab has been full-on, a lot different to my first one,” he said.

“It’s been a lot of different stuff. A lot of gymnastics and jumping and trampoline work; power and explosiveness around my legs.

“It’s been a lot tougher but it’s definitely been a lot more ... I guess you could say smarter I reckon.

“It’s pulling up a lot better from training and that sort of stuff so I’m backing up week-by-week training a lot better than I did last time.”

He was joined in his rehabilitation by Tim Mohr, who suffered the same injury just weeks before the big forward. Patton will be hoping to follow in Mohr’s footsteps, with the defender now five games into his return for the UWS GIANTS and pushing for senior selection.

“It was really good to have Tim there and we could have fun together between sets of exercises so that was good in that regard.”