The big interview: Tom Vickers talks to returning Saints forward Robbie Smith

Just a few months after securing his first two caps, against Canada and the USA, Smith suffered a season-ending knee injury in Saints' home victory over Sale Sharks.

It was an injury that Sam Graham, who also saw his campaign cut short by a knee problem on the previous weekend, described as 'the full monty', such was the severity of it.

Like Graham, Smith was also left fearing for his rugby future, wondering whether he would ever be able to play again.

But with memories of those Scotland caps still fresh in the mind, he set about ensuring that his action on the international stage would not be his last.

“I think the biggest thing for me was that I was hungry to play for Scotland again," Smith explained in an interview with this publication last week.

"I made a promise to myself that that's where I want to get back to, and that this injury wasn't the end."

Smith has stayed true to that promise, returning to training with Saints during pre-season, though he still has a little way to go before he will be ready to play again.

Still, that he has got this far is testament to the hard work and desire of the hooker.

And it is also testament to the work that everyone at Saints has done with him, physically and mentally.

“It was a dark winter for me," the 26-year-old said. "I was on crutches for three months. It was pretty tough.

“The club have been great. It's a tough injury to do, but I don't think I could have done it in a better place, in terms of the way the club and the lads have got behind me.

"Even supporters and fans you meet in Sainsbury's, they ask you how you're getting on.

“There's a real family feeling around this club; everybody wants to see you do well and get back on the pitch.

“The injury came at such a difficult time for me, I felt like I was getting myself into the team more regularly, and I just came off the back of the summer tour, where I'd got my first two caps from Scotland.

“All those thoughts were going through my head. It's the unknown, which is the worst.

"I wouldn't say the pain for me was anything too crazy at that point, but your whole world's just been turned upside down in a matter of two minutes.”

The fact that Graham had also had his world turned upside down less than a week earlier meant Smith had a companion in the recovery process.

“It was a weird thing because obviously it happened a week apart and I’m pretty close to Sam," Smith said.

"We came into the club at pretty much the same time, I lived with him for about a month before I got here.

"Seeing him go down at Leicester was pretty brutal and I couldn’t believe it, that we got into the next week, five minutes into the Sale game and I’ve pretty much done a similar injury.

"It was mad how it happened but I was pretty lucky to have him to lean on and go through the same sort of things.

"We’ve managed to push each other through and we’ve got to a stage where he's pretty much fully back now and I shouldn’t be too far away.

"I don’t think I could have done it without him.”

Reflecting on the incident that ended his season in October last year, Smith said: "I came around the corner, off the back of a lineout move, and stepped, and I think that's when the first part of my injury happened.

“I passed the ball, and then Tom Curry, of all people, folded me in mid-air, which probably didn't help the knee after that.

“I didn't really know what to think. I was lying on the ground, and I knew it almost felt like I had taken a kick to the knee, which didn't happen.

“It was a strange feeling. I remember just looking at the sky, and everything sort of went quiet.

"Because I couldn't lift my leg, I couldn't lift my shin off the floor, so I knew something was pretty bad. But I just remember feeling absolutely gutted.

"I went down the tunnel and sat with the physio inside and he spoke to me, he told me what had probably happened, my patella tendon had gone and he’d be surprised if there weren’t other issues based on the look of my knee.

"I sat and watched the game from the little physio room in the tunnel and there’s a whole load of different emotions going through your head.

"I was wondering what was going to happen and it was the unknown that was the worst thing for me.”

Smith required three separate surgeries to put things right, with the last one coming back on December 18.

“I was pretty luck with my surgeon, Andy Williams, who is one of the best knee surgeons in the world,” Smith said.

"He explained to me that he wanted to do it in two surgeries but it would be very much dependent on what he felt when he went in.

"The first one was to replace my kneecap, the second one was the patella tendon and he was considering doing the ACL on the second one but he just felt the stiffness and the chance of infection was so high he’d wait for a third, which I’m glad he did because I’m in a spot where I've done well and I’ve had no setbacks.

"At the time, it was one operation to get better, to get another operation, to get better, to get another operation so it was just up and down, up and down the whole time.

"It took a real toll on my mentality, which was hard.

"Sam Graham had one operation so I saw him get worse to get better, but I knew I had two more operations to go and I was just sitting waiting in the physio room for my next two operations.

"It was a long period of time but I’m past it now hopefully.”

Now, after almost 11 months out of action, Smith is finally nearing the end of his arduous road to recovery and is eager to get back on the pitch for Saints, who start their new Gallagher PREM campaign at home to Exeter Chiefs on Sunday, September 28.

"I'm happy to be back amongst the lads and doing a lot more training,” Smith said. “I'm still not 100 per cent, but hopefully we’re looking around the first block of PREM games, it’s all dependent on how my training goes.

"It feels like I'm a new player.

"It's strange, like your first day in the academy.

"I remember when I was back in the academy at Glasgow, when I got my first pre-season up there, and it's the exact same feeling,

"I’m just buzzing to come into work and get going again."