It has definitely been hard. Johnson has always believed that to play well, you train well, and that to play even better you train even harder. His surgeon let his knee settle for four months before doing his third reconstruction this year, and in that time Johnson trained simply to keep fit before his next surgery, as well as squeezing in a trip around America that made him feel like a normal person again.

It has never made him feel sick, at all, and it has never shown up in the fluid in his knee, meaning no-one has ever been able to extract and grow it, let alone work out how to kill it. The thinking is that it started on his skin, sits on things – the graft, the screws, maybe some bone – and may have become resistant to certain antibiotics. The specialists he has spoken to have had slightly different takes on how to tackle it and how long it might take until he is able to have his fourth reconstruction, but they have all told him that it can be gotten rid of. "They've all said, we will be able to get on top of this, it's just a matter of how long it's going to take. And that's something I suppose I'm used to now," Johnson said. "It won't be a ridiculous amount of time, but there isn't really any timeframe, and as hard as that is, I don't want to have repeat this again. I want to get rid of it and get rid of it completely, and that just means I have to wait."

The problem is the infection, which has been there since the first surgery. Johnson has been told it is an extremely low-grade staph, which hides away when his knee has been left alone but has reappeared each time it has been put through the trauma of another operation.

Johnson felt relieved, on that day – like he still knew how to read the play, take marks, run off with the ball. Then he had to call his father from the boundary line and ask him to meet him in the rooms, because he'd done his knee again. Still, those nine minutes give him hope, even now.

He's going to have to do the same thing now, probably for a lot longer, and it isn't only his own lack of control that has frustrated him, "because it feels like this is out of everyone else's control as well. No one has said, 'this will definitely fix this.' And I've become a bit conditioned to getting bad news. I pretty much expect something to go wrong now. When I went in to see the infection guy two weeks ago, I knew I wasn't walking out of there with good news," he said. "I find that side of things frustrating because in every other aspect of my life I've always felt in control of what happens. With this, I'm reliant on advice, which I've never really liked, and it feels like no matter what I do or don't do, it's not changing the outcome."

Other things have changed, while he has been waiting. Last year Johnson worked alongside Adam Goodes, Sam Reid and whoever else came through the rehab group and felt like he was part of something, like he was working towards the same thing they were: getting back into the team. The last six months have been a more alienating experience, even though he knows how much everyone at the club loves him and wants him back. "I think that's what just happens when you're injured, you become more distant from the group. And I've sort of wanted that. The last thing I want to do is bring anyone else down, and being around them makes you remember and realise what you're missing out on," Johnson said. "The club's been amazing, with me. Everyone there has been so good about letting me pick and choose what I get involved with and how much I'm around. No one's pushed me, they've all wanted me to work out how to keep myself as happy as I can be. It's just different. The most important players at a footy club are the 22 who are playing on the weekend, and at the moment I'm not one of them. I will be, but at the moment I'm just not."

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Johnson hasn't forgotten his grand final. Bits of it have become hazy but he can remember getting down to Melbourne one night earlier than usual, riding through the city streets in the Friday parade, looking around an already full MCG while warming up on the ground, hugging his teammates after the final siren, seeing people he knew from years ago hanging over the fence during the lap of honour and catching up with his family in the rooms. He still has the same plans he had after that day. But first of all he simply wants to run out on a Saturday afternoon, play a game of football then do the same thing the next weekend.

He knows he will, absolutely. "I have full confidence that once I get on top of this infection, the next reconstruction will hold and be fine. It will take, and it will hold and it will be fine," he said. "It sounds easy, doesn't it? But I just know within myself that I'm pretty determined and that if I'm in a position where I can work towards what I want, then I'll find my way towards it and I'll get there. I'm going to make sure that's what happens."