If John Porch hears his name next Thursday when Australian Sevens coach Andy Friend announces his squad for the Rio Olympics, he’ll have more reason to celebrate than most.

Three years ago, the 22-year old was told he’d probably never play rugby again.

“Towards the end of the 2013 season, I was playing colts for Norths against Randwick. It was just a normal game and I got tackled from behind and my ankle got trapped between the defender and the ground and I suffered a compound fracture to my ankle,” Porch told Rugby News.

“I don’t like to compare, but I’ve been told my injury was probably a little bit worse than the one Katoni (Ale) had playing for Manly.”

Porch spent the next 10 months in rehab, working with former Wallabies physio Greg Craig and incredibly, less than a year after being told he may never play again, he returned to the playing field.

The outside back starred for Northern Suburbs and the North Harbour Rays in 2014 and 2015 and made his Australian Sevens debut in Wellington earlier this year.

“To be honest, I’m just happy to be able to play rugby so everything else that comes is an added bonus.

“It’s been a pretty crazy year and I’m just trying to take it one day at a time and really enjoy every opportunity that I get,” he said.

Porch and the Australian squad have just returned from a week long camp in Darwin, their last before Friend announces his squad to play in Rio next month.

“The week in Darwin was tough. I don’t think it really got under 30 degrees up there and the humidity was about 80% the whole time so it was a bit of a change from Sydney.

“We were training two sessions a day. Out on the field most mornings and then we had conditioning in the afternoon and cross training so it was pretty intense.

“The biggest session was the Thursday. We ran a 10km session in the morning, then had fitness in the afternoon which put another couple of k’s in the legs. Most days we had to run to the ground in the morning as well, then get ourselves up for conditioning in the afternoon,” he said.

Friend took 16 players to Darwin and admitted it would be tough for anyone from outside that squad to earn a ticket to Rio. Next Thursday, he will name a 12-man playing squad plus two travelling reserves.

“Andy is keeping it pretty well under wraps, so it is fairly nerve-wracking at that moment, but I think he just wants to keep all the boys training hard so that we are all ready if we get picked,” Porch said.

“I’m not getting my hopes up too much. I’m just trying to train as hard as possible and if I get selected then it’s a huge bonus. I honestly never thought the Olympics was a possibility so if I do get picked, it would be amazing.”

Although Porch is one of the newer members to the squad, he said training with the full time squad at Narrabeen has allowed him to learn quickly.

“My sevens knowledge has really improved. I’ve been working with James Stannard a lot because I’ve started playing a little bit of halfback now so he has been mentoring me,” he said.

“There’s a lot more running involved with playing halfback. You have to run around behind the defensive line and organise and then you have to control and order the attack around so it’s a difficult position.”

Australia finished fourth in the 2015/16 World Series and qualified for two tournament finals but are still looking for their first victory since 2012.

They’ll face France, Spain and South Africa in their opening matches with the top two teams and another two wildcards progressing through to the knockout stages.

“The boys are going to have to have their heads screwed on for every game, you can’t take anyone lightly and Spain proved that by winning the repechage.”

“As a squad though, our goal is to win Gold. We are focussing first on getting out of the pool, then we want to go on and win the gold medal.”

Both the men and women’s squads will be announced next Thursday.