CARLTON vice-captain Sam Docherty says despite some initial challenges, his recovery from a knee reconstruction is going smoothly.

The 2017 All Australian ruptured his ACL during a pre-season session in November last year, spending this season’s game days on the bench as a makeshift assistant coach.

“It’s going really well. I’m tracking really well. Everything that I’ve supposed to have hit - touch wood - I’ve hit so far,” Docherty told Fox Footy’s On The Mark on Wednesday night.

Suffering the season-ending blow in an innocuous incident, the 24-year-old admitted he was initially in denial about the extent of the injury.

“It’s definitely one of the strangest things I’ve been through. It shocks you,” he said.

“You go through a wave of emotions that I look back now and pretty much laugh at – the shock of doing it, into the denial out of trying to talk myself out of the fact that I had possibly done it.

“On the way to the scan you’re holding onto the small percentage of chance that you haven’t actually snapped it. Then there’s the overall emotion of being told it’s a confirmed ACL and then working through that process.

“I sat down with (senior coach Brendon Bolton) ‘Bolts’ for pretty much an hour after I got told about what had happened and how I was going to get through it. We were spitballing plans.”

Docherty said he was grateful to have the opportunity to work closer with Bolton and the rest of the Blues’ coaching panel this season.

“It’s not often you get a gap year in footy, where I’ve been able to do some things that I would never be able to do on my life – be 24-25 and sitting on the assistant coaching meetings and coaching on game day,” he said.

“Not a lot of players get to do that, and it’s been an exciting part of my life this year.”

With an eye on the 2019 pre-season, Docherty said he couldn’t wait to return to training alongside a bevvy of talented young teammates.

“I can’t wait to get back to pre-season and to try and grow with the likes of the Zac Fishers, the Samo Petrevski-Setons, Jacob Weiterings and Charlie Curnows into absolute superstars of the competition,” he said.

“We’ve got the talent at our football club to do something pretty special. It’s a matter of us being together for some time now.

“We’re on the journey and we’re growing together. We’ve got the talent on our list to grow and really start to improve.”