From there it was a waiting game. Swinton drew strength from teammates Will Harrison and Joey Walton, also on the long-term injured list, and learned to break time down into smaller increments. He set goals. He spoke to Wallabies teammate Rory Arnold, who suffered the same injury and recovered without surgery.

“I’m not going to lie to you, it was very tough,” Swinton said. “When you deal with nerves it’s a very big grey area. Any sort of thing when you go in and touch them [with surgery] you can’t be sure how the person is going to react. When I talked to the surgeon, he told me that from the outset. It was the unknown that scared me and to be able to push on with it I was going to have to shape that up.”

The surgery went well so the Waratahs medical team planned a graduated return to training and contact. In October they set their sights on returning for a pre-season trial and, about three weeks ago, there were indications the nerve had woken up. Pretty soon, Swinton will have a full working shoulder again.

But just taking the field wasn’t enough. Swinton also wanted to make sure he could play with the same physicality and aggression that, in three seasons, had made him one of the most riveting players to watch in Super Rugby.

“I pride myself on putting my body on the line for my teammates and I wanted to continue to do that,” he said.

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“I really wanted to be healthy and effective with my shoulders so running out was a big goal. My family and friends were happy to see it. It gave me quite a bit of excitement to see how happy it made my teammates and the people in my close circle. I could tell how happy they all were. I didn’t really realise that until I played.”

The Waratahs have their back row weapon back and Eddie Jones will be watching with interest, too.

Meanwhile, stand-in Australia sevens captain Henry Hutchison will miss the rest of this year’s Sevens World Series after being battered with four injuries in the space of a week.

Hutchison sprained his wrist and broke several ribs during the sevens tournament in Hamilton late last month. Then at the Sydney Sevens the following week, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and injured his right knee.

The ACL tear has ruled him out for the rest of the season, meaning he’ll miss events in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Singapore, Toulouse and London.

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