Six months after Professor Damian Griffin performed one of his most challenging operations ever, Tom Curry has returned to international rugby. Curry, who plays for the England national rugby union team and Premiership Rugby team Sale Sharks, has made a recovery that Griffin describes as “spectacular”.
As one of the most distinguished hip surgeons in the UK, it’s no surprise that Professor Griffin was entrusted with Curry’s career-defining hip surgery. Griffin is the founder and lead doctor of the Hip Arthroscopy Clinic, the Professor of Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery at Warwick Medical School, and is an internationally recognised expert who teaches and lectures worldwide.
However, the incredible speed at which Curry returned to international rugby is a surprise. After the operation at Harley Street Specialist Hospital, his target return date was September (the start of next season), but Curry is months ahead.
When Curry last played rugby in October 2023, Sale Sharks’ physiotherapist Navdeep Sandhu noticed something concerning: Curry was hobbling as he came off the pitch. He remained in significant discomfort when he was reassessed in November during a re-entry medical exam.
“When we got our hands on him you could feel the hip was not moving as it should,” Sandhu said. “Then you do certain tests. Firstly it was not really moving and secondly the end-feel was very hard and bony.”
A scan was ordered and Sandhu described the result as being “like a scene from a comedy film. Normally when you get a scan, it is just an A4 piece of paper but this one unravelled and it kept falling down with more and more frames.” According to Curry, the results were “a bit of a car crash”.
For a high-profile player like Curry, only the best would do. That’s when they contacted Professor Griffin, the first hip surgeon in the country to specialise in athletes. “I got into that because there was no one doing that in the UK, hardly anyone in the world,” Griffin said. “Even now there are only a very small number of us who do this as our main event.” As his reputation grew, so did his business, as Griffin became the go-to hip surgeon for rugby players, tennis players, footballers, golfers, and track and field athletes.
Despite his wealth of experience, even Griffin was taken aback by the level of damage to Curry’s hip. “In terms of severity, Tom was at the most severe end,” Griffin said. “A lot of surgeons would look at him and say it is not going to work, that is just beyond what is possible.”
Curry was diagnosed with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome, a condition in which the ball of the hip joint is not completely round. Curry’s was oval-shaped, which had severe repercussions and required surgery to regain full use of his hip.
“If you don’t have a completely round ball, then as it rotates, it jams in the socket and that will limit your range of movement,” Griffin stated. “Also, it means you get some uneven wear and tear inside the joint. The damage in Tom’s hip was pretty extensive. There was a lot of wear of the cartilage, and he had grown some substantial areas of extra bone.”
Professor Griffin presented Curry with four options: continue to play in discomfort, retire, repair via surgery or have a joint replacement. The first three options came with a risk that if unsuccessful, he would need a hip replacement anyway.
“It was almost like a grieving process at first,” Sandhu said. “Damian told us this is as bad as it gets for a sportsman’s hip. It was a lot to take in for a 25-year-old.”
The option they chose was arthroscopic (keyhole) repair surgery. The operation on December 4 was scheduled to last two hours at Harley Street Specialist Hospital, but lasted more than six. Griffin reshaped the ball of Curry’s hip with a high-speed micro burr and repaired the labrum and cartilage via a stem cell transplant.
“Arthroscopic surgery in the hip is a pretty specialised area that is pretty rare,” Griffin said. “I was doing stuff at the most challenging end of that kind of surgery. For that reason, the surgery took several hours.”
Griffin successfully completed the operation, but the battle was just beginning. Despite what Sandhu calls Curry’s “freakish” ability to put on muscle, there was no escaping the long, tough rehabilitation process.
“Tom is easily the most mentally resilient player I have ever worked with,” Sandhu said. “The ball rolled really quickly after the first eight weeks when you are letting the joint settle. The muscles started coming back and the movement feels easier. Eventually when we saw Damian four months post-surgery, he was amazed. He said ‘I have not seen someone look this good a year post-surgery, even two years post-surgery and you are four months’.”
For most people, a course of physiotherapy would be enough to return to their daily life. But for a top athlete like Curry, the next step was a stint in Jonas Dodoo’s Speedworks camp in Loughborough. When Curry started visiting at the end of March, Dodoo compared him to a flat football: you can still kick it but won’t travel very far.
“The way he plays is a really fast, explosive, elastic player, but he had lost that explosivity and that elasticity,” Dodoo said. “Another way to look at it is that a tractor produces a lot of force. The amount of horsepower you can get out of a tractor versus a Ferrari might not be that different, but the Ferrari can produce all that force really, really quickly.”
The battle wasn’t just physical — Curry had psychological barriers to overcome, too. “The man fears nothing,” Dodoo said. “Just look at what he does with his face. But subconsciously, his body still did not fully trust that limb. It is a result of trauma. As soon as you have someone use a knife to cut into your body and move things around, your body will downgrade that area.”
“Your body needs confidence and clarity to connect with that area, otherwise it is almost like you are having internal pins and needles. First you need to get your tissue back and your strength back and then regain your limb and coordination and explosivity.”
To regain those skills as fast as possible, Curry went to Loughborough once a week for plyometrics, resisted sprints, medicine ball throwing and, eventually, full-on sprints with direction changes. By May, Dodoo brought him down for a whole week of training.
“His target was to be back for next season,” Dodoo said. “When we first spoke, being back for the end of the Premiership season was a ridiculous goal and going away with England was silly to even think about. He just wanted to be ready for pre-season with Sale. But by the end of May, I was like, ‘this boy is doing things that I never expected him to do.’”
Curry was physically ready by this point to return for Sale’s final season match, but opted for an extra week’s training before making his comeback. He returned as a replacement in the semi-final game against Bath, showcasing his skill and strength in a tackle against Josh Bayliss.
“He was like a hurricane for 35 minutes,” Sandhu said. “Bayliss had all the momentum on his side, and Tom just melted him. That was the point at which I could breathe again because you could see he was back.”
While Professor Griffin, Sandhu and Dodoo played major roles in his comeback, they attribute the surgery’s outstanding success to Curry’s dedication. Aptly, ‘commitment’ is the description next to Curry’s player photo in the Sale physio room, suggesting this trait is nothing new for the England star.
“He is committed to the nth degree,” Sandhu said. “That commitment engulfs positivity and resilience. It is the umbrella that everything else sits under.”
While Griffin has seen faster returns to sport after hip surgery, none have faced an issue as severe as complicated as Curry’s. “When I saw him at three or four months I was seriously impressed how far along he was,” Griffin said. “To be playing international rugby six months on is really spectacularly good.”
At Harley Street Specialist Hospital, our team of expert hip consultants is dedicated to providing comprehensive care for a wide range of conditions, from minor injuries to the most severe hip disorders. If you’re experiencing hip pain or any other orthopaedic issues, we invite you to contact us for a consultation. Our specialists are here to help you achieve the best possible outcome and get back to enjoying your life.