Gun Launceston recruit Josh Woolley has credited team physio Zac Young for getting him back on the park.
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A premiership player with the Blues in 2011, Woolley returned to Windsor Park late last year after six years working and playing football in Queensland.
Osteitis pubis had derailed the 28-year-old defender's 2019 and 2020 campaigns, but a return to health has seen him play in all three of the Blues' wins this season.
"Zac got me back on board - within three to four weeks I was running again," Woolley said.
"I hadn't been running for over a year and a half, so I was actually amazed as to what Zac and the club did for me when I returned.
"[I needed] to get back to kicking again and the smaller skills you don't think you're going to lose ... it's taken time.
"I needed to be back in a professional environment and my game's improved tremendously in the last few months - I'm only going to be better and it's all credit to [coach Mitch Thorp] and the club."
Departing in 2013, Woolley played in two premierships with Palm Beach while chalking up his 10th year in the building industry.
Since returning to his hometown and junior footy club, the former Prospect High student has enjoyed working alongside his father and is "slowly getting used to the cold".
"It was good for me to get away and have a break, but to come back to the environment Mitch and the club have [created] is incredible.
"I thought the club was good here when I was 18, but Mitch and the club have come a long way since then and the professionalism, the cameraderie of the boys ... it's a great place to be.
"I didn't expect the culture to be that good down here, but it's probably the best I've ever seen the club at the moment."
Tim Bristow's retirement leaves Woolley and vice-captain Joe Groenewegen as the sole players remaining from the 2011 flag, but the left-footer still recognised plenty of familiar faces upon returning last year.
Woolley played alongside Jake Smith in 2013 and spent several games matched up on Thorp when the Blues coach was at South Launceston with Michael Musicka, Dylan Riley, Jobi Harper and Jay Blackberry.
Blackberry has been one of the Blues' best this season with 30-plus disposals and multiple goals in his past two games.
"He's just great to watch, he's probably the one that's impressed me," Woolley said.
"I used to play with him in Mariner footy back in the day and he's always been a good user of the ball, he always knows how to find the ball and after playing the first couple of rounds he's done just that."
Woolley is one of 11 players in Saturday's side that have come up through the Blues' juniors or junior zone.