BEACONSFIELD RFC’s Jonny Hughes needed an emergency operation last week to put his ankle back together with six screws and a plate.

But – and this is a quote for the club bar – as he was laying on the turf in agony with a snapped fibula a hardy team-mate jogged up to him and said: “You’ll be alright, just run it off.”

Hughes said: “That was the last thing I was going to do.

“I’d never broken a bone before but I heard a massive crack and I’ve honestly never had pain like it.

“I got immediate pins and needles in my toes.

“I went to the changing rooms and it was one of those without windows so I couldn’t even see the match.

“I didn’t know exactly what I’d done but I was in agony. Reality was starting to set in but I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to come to terms with it.

“It was a pretty dark 40 minutes.”

However, while Hughes didn’t take Ed Waugh’s advice he didn’t exactly rush to seek medical advice.

He hobbled his way through Sunday and was even on his way to work on Monday morning when he decided to stop at the hospital en route.

He said: “The physios at Beaconsfield said I should go to hospital but I didn’t fancy a night in A&E in Essex.

“The rugby mentality is ‘you’ll be alright’ so I drove home from the match and dropped friends off.

“The next day I hobbled to Sainsbury’s but I thought, ‘this is bad’.

“On Monday I was driving to work and on my way I dropped in to Wexham Hospital.

“Five hours later I was having an operation. I didn’t make it work.

“I was expecting them to just give my crutches if I needed to hobble about and to say it would be fine in three or four days.

“They say if you can hobble more than five steps it’s not broken, but I hobbled to Sainsbury’s on Sunday and that’s about 500m so that’s a load of rubbish.”

Hughes won’t play again this season and without him Beaconsfield need to complete the great escape.

They are second from bottom in London 1 North and Hughes thinks they need to win at least four of their remaining ten matches to have a chance.

He said: “I think we can. On paper this is Beaconsfield’s strongest ever team.

“The cliche is that the big players need to step up. But we’re passed that now.

“Everyone needs to.”

Starting with tomorrow’s trip to Basildon, who are one place above them in the table.

Hughes said: “That game is make or break. If we lose that we’re pretty much down.”