Before the moment he thought had snapped his dreams like a twig, it wasn’t hard to imagine that Ryan Burton might crown his debut season as a senior AFL footballer bounding into September with an innocent’s spring. That he’s doing so after all he’s been through is nothing short of remarkable.

Burton remembers not just the instant his sporting life changed course but every second leading up to it, as if watching a horror movie for the umpteenth time. Adelaide’s Sacred Heart College oval, August 2014, playing the interlopers from Assumption in the traditional season-ender. Early in the second quarter he’d kicked three, given off a couple more, knew he had his opponent’s measure. Playing only his fifth school game of the year, he needed another two to top the competition goalkicking.

“I was out on the lead, went for a mark … someone pushed me up from underneath ... I landed not knowing where the ground was,” he says. As his leg hyper-extended Burton flipped forward, catapulted by the force of his own misfortune. “I could hear the crack. I remember looking at my knee, thinking it was a bit dislocated.

“I thought I was done, almost career over, that I wouldn’t get drafted.”

Little about the miserable months that followed brightened his outlook. During a week spent in hospital his surgeon, close family friend and former Adelaide Crow Matthew Liptak, told him he might never run again let alone play football. Through seven weeks on crutches he couldn’t remember what it was like to be pain-free. He couldn’t find a ray of light from any vantage point. “I’d seen the X-rays and they were shocking, like a car crash.”

It took 10 screws and a plate to repair the tibial plateau fracture. His discomfort was initially compounded by one of the screws piercing the joint and causing agonising friction, but after this was repaired he found some solace in going back to school. Burton reckons his studies had been going well before the injury; even after dropping a subject to lighten the load, he’s proud to have passed Year 12 given the crippling eleventh hour distractions.

Slowly the clouds lifted. His father, dual North Adelaide premiership player Craig, had been through a knee reconstruction and knew a footballer’s pain. His son was touted as a potential No.1 draft pick; Craig Burton told him the ranking might drop, but recruiters would still mark what he’d done over what he’d missed.

Burton resolved to prove the doubters wrong, and mounted up boxes ticked ahead of schedule. “Little things like getting movement in my knee quicker than anyone expected, getting my strength back after that quicker than anyone thought.” He walked, then ran, gritted his teeth and put on 14 kilograms in the gym.

Coaching kids through schools’ program Kelly Sports ensured mind as well as body was nourished. “That was my get-out. I got to coach my own Year 4-5 team, which was sort of my game day.”

Hawthorn kept track then backed him in with its first pick of the 2015 draft.

The prospective third tall had become a key position forward, yet one smart enough to know how much could change in such a long time out of the game. “I was continually watching games and thinking, ‘What am I going to do when I get back?’ Because I was so much heavier I was thinking there’d be different ways I’d have to get the ball. ‘Am I going to be able to run with this much weight?’ Things like that.”

Almost 500 days after breaking his leg, Burton lined up for Box Hill in a pre-season game. He was a footballer again, and set his sights on breaking into the triple premiership team. Then came the setback.

“My thinking was they’d come out when I was older,” he says of the veritable recycling centre that was housed in his knee. With medical advances he envisaged getting a brand new joint - in his 60s. When fluid built up as he returned to match play, the decision was taken to remove the metal then and there.

“I was a little bit nervous, asked the question: ‘Does my knee actually need this stuff in there to hold together?’ The doctors assured me it’s stronger than ever.” When they opened him up the growth of his young bones had been so vibrant that two screws had to stay there, embedded as harmless markers of a traumatic experiences. “They haven’t given me any trouble. The knee’s feeling really strong.”

He had a crucial “win” before heading back to surgery, convincing medical staff to let him play in the VFL before entering another 15 weeks in rehab. “Mentally I thought, I need to play a couple of games … just get through them, then I’ll go in for surgery knowing that I’m back to playing at the level and can reset and do it later in the year.”

Returning by round 17 prompted gasps from those who assumed he wouldn’t be seen again until 2017. After less than two full games with Box Hill he was mucking around on the basketball court one day when Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell called him into a room. Coach Alastair Clarkson was waiting, and told his senior leaders, “Boys, I just got you in here to let ‘Spider’ know he’s playing his first game this week.”

He’s surprised himself, how calm and relaxed he’s felt right from the outset. “Even my debut (against North Melbourne) I just treated it like any other. It’s followed through each game. I feel like I belong.”

He also feels a benefit that’s already long outlasted the pain, a hard-won belief that will sustain him beyond a footballer’s life. “I can do anything I put my mind to.”