Fantasy football coaches beware! Rocky the former fantasy 'pig' will have a heavily interrupted pre-season leading into season 2020.
29-year-old Rockliff had a Latarjet-Bristow procedure in Adelaide on Tuesday night, which involves bone and muscle being re-positioned in a triple blocking effect to prevent recurring shoulder dislocations.
First devised by French surgeon Dr. Michel Latarjet in the mid-1950s, the operation has a success rate of 94 to 99% but recovery can take three to six months.
"It's frustrating," Rockliff told News corp. "These shoulder injuries have become pretty debilitating at times, but hopefully this surgery will do the job."
Rockliff had relatively minor surgeries on his left shoulder in 2017 and 2018, before the injury reoccurred in the Showdown match of Round 8 this year. He returned for the two following games before a hamstring injury in Round 10 kept him out until Round 16.
"I played out the (Round 8) game and the rest of the year because it didn't feel too bad but there were moments in games where it would flare up, feel a bit jumpy and be a bit restricting," he said.
"It had its good and bad moments."
He is expected to wear a sling for six weeks before joining contact drills in early January.
"If all goes to plan, I hope to be ready to play the first pre-season match next year, but we'll have to wait to see how things go with the recovery," he said.