Colwill 'enjoyed challenge' of injury break

Fit-again Rubin Colwill says he "quite enjoyed" his three-month injury absence and used it to make improvements to his game.

The Cardiff City captain injured an ankle in November and missed 17 games before he returned to fitness last month.

Prior to his injury, Colwill had started every League One match for Cardiff and was instrumental in their ascent to the top of the division.

But the playmaker says his untimely injury gave him an opportunity to work out how he could return a better player.

"Obviously it's tough, I'm not saying it's easy, but I think you catastrophise the situation, and it's just how you manage that in your head," said Colwill.

"I quite enjoyed the experience, to be honest. It was a different challenge, something I hadn't experienced before, and it almost gives you time to take a step back, reflect on a lot of things, decide what you want to do going forward.

"How do you want to work, how do you want to commit yourself to different things, what do I need to work on, what do I need to improve physically in the gym, (and) mentally.

"Just mentally it was obviously a real big challenge. You're away from the team, you can't contribute and it's tough.

"You're on your own all day every day. Not (literally) on your own, but compared to being with 20 other lads it can be quite lonely so I think it tests you mentally more than anything."

Since returning as a substitute in the 3-1 home win against Luton last month, Colwill came off the bench in the 5-2 defeat by Plymouth before starting last weekend's 4-0 win at Doncaster as a striker.

Cardiff were top of the league when Colwill was injured, and remain top now he's returned.

"I think when you're coming back into the exact same environment you left, the standards are still really high, the levels and training are still really high, the performances on the pitch are the exact same, and I think that's credit to everyone really.

"People always say the competition and stuff is really important and it definitely is, but I think it's got to be healthy. I think we're in a place right now where we're all competing against each other.

"Of course everybody wants to play, but we just turn up every day, give our best and the manager picks who he picks. We're all almost accepting of that so I think there's no animosity between anybody.

"It's like, 'I'm gonna do my best today, if it's enough I'll play, if it's not I won't and I'll support everybody else who is playing,' so I think it's a really, really healthy environment at the minute."

Colwill will hope to play a prominent part in Cardiff City's League One promotion push and with five fixtures to come before the international break also hopes to play his way into Craig Bellamy's Wales squad for the World Cup play-offs at the end of March.

Since making his debut in 2021, Colwill has won 10 senior Wales caps, scoring once.

He is one of the few Wales internationals to play at the World Cup, appearing as a substitute during Wales' 3-0 defeat by England in Qatar in 2022.

"When I got injured I knew the timescales, I knew when I'd be back. I knew I'd have a couple of weeks before the camp," he said.

"I'm just hopeful that I can stay in the team, play as much as I can and do well for Cardiff and then that'll mean I'm hopefully in a great place to be selected."