It feels like it was only a few months ago that I was wincing at the stats that women are eight times more likely to rupture their anterior cruciate ligaments (ACLs) than men.

It feels like even fewer months ago that I was chatting to Roar Women player Jenna Tristram after she'd just endured her second knee reconstruction.

I've just had that conversation again, as the dreaded female knee stats have struck again. This time the casualty is Roar Women midfielder Joanne Burgess, who ruptured her ACL while representing Queensland at the Futsal National Titles in January.

The good news, though, is that while she's on the road to recovery, her road is, courtesy of a new-fangled procedure known as a Ligament Advancement Reinforcement System (or LARS), a much shorter one.

As someone who for some irrational, inexplicable reason fears doing her ACL more than she fears cancer, two of my first questions to Burgess were: Did you know straight away? What did it feel like?

Her answers were that yes, she knew immediately: 'It gave way and I heard a pop,' she says, noting that it felt like it happened in slow motion.

'So many thoughts went through my head as I was falling. I was thinking: What is Tommy [Sermanni-Matildas coach] going to say...there go the Matildas...I'm not going in an ambulance.' Yes, ever stoic, Burgess refused to be carted off in a scene-making ambulance.

So what's different about her operation and recovery?

In standard ACL reconstructions, the torn ACL is taken out and replaced with either a hamstring or patella graft. With the LARS, the ACL isn't removed and is instead repaired and reinforced—as in wrapped or woven—with a synthetic ligament made from polyethylene teraphylate.

As a result, the LARS recovery time (four to six months) is literally half that of the recovery time for a standard reconstruction of up to 12 months. This means that although Burgess missed out on the Matildas' successful Asian Cup campaign, she'll be back in time for the third W-League season as if she hadn't had any time off at all.

She will, of course, be fit to contest a spot in the Matildas for the 2011 Women's World Cup too. She's told her teammates to look out when she's back because she's looking forward to the challenge, before adding that, 'Everything happens for a reason and maybe doing my knee has been the best thing for me.'

I wouldn't be surprised if it was-after all, Burgess correctly picked Spain as the World Cup winners long before the first ball was kicked in South Africa, and she also tipped Germany go far in the tournament.

She will be back on the pitch in time for the third W-League season later this year thanks to the LARS—for most members of the general public, it'll be like she's never been away. And as for the female knee stats? Here's hoping the LARS helps reduce if not the injuries, then at least the recovery time.