BRAD Ottens felt a mixture of pleasure and pain as he watched his premiership teammates win game after game without him.

The pleasure came from seeing young ruckman Mark Blake grow into his cult reputation, and a kind of detached enjoyment gained from seeing his team win.

The pain came from the partially torn tendon in his foot, and the anxiety that built with each passing week, he was unable to run on it. Ottens, the Cats' tower of strength, didn't feel so strong.

The condition that caused Ottens to miss the first 10 rounds of the season, plantar fasciitis, has been known to make athletes do drastic things. It is among the foot ailments that forced world champion hurdler Jana Rawlinson out of the Beijing Olympics, and which in 2005 moved St Kilda champion Robert Harvey to leap off the kitchen table to snap the tendon deliberately, to relieve the pressure and hasten his recovery.

Ottens did think about doing a Harvey, but was saved the trouble when the tendon eventually tore of its own accord, and started to get better.

"It's got to tear all the way through, and I (initially) tore it partially. After about five or six weeks, I was going to try and play the Brisbane game, and in the week leading up to that, I tore it completely," Ottens said.

"I just felt it go at training. I was pretty sore for a week or so and then it gradually came good after that. If it went any longer, I would have been thinking about (deliberately tearing it)."

Even while he was out of the side, sitting in the stands feeling frustrated, Ottens was a powerful symbol of what Geelong might be capable of in its post-premiership year.

Although Steven King departed for St Kilda a fortnight after the grand final, Blake was making up for it and the Cats were winning without appearing to move beyond third gear. How much better they could be with Ottens ruling the ruck, as he did emphatically throughout the 2007 finals series, was frightening.

The journey back to maximum strength has been slower than Ottens anticipated.

"It has taken me a bit longer to get going than I would have thought," he said. "I didn't run for 10 weeks, and you tend to lose it quickly. It's hard to catch up that match fitness, which only comes from game time.

"I kept thinking I was two weeks away the whole time, and it's so hard to keep fit when you can't run, so it probably was one of the more frustrating things I've had.

"The first month or so back, I was still a bit aware of it (the injury) because I guess it's part of your foot that's not there. It takes a while to get used to, but it's good now."

It is fitting that Ottens' return to full fitness coincides with tonight's long-anticipated clash with premiership challenger Hawthorn at the MCG. For blockbuster value, it promises to match last year's narrow preliminary final victory against Collingwood, in which Ottens was best-on-ground.

With 23 hitouts against the Western Bulldogs at Skilled Stadium last Saturday, Ottens seems primed for the giant's impact he has been able to produce far more consistently since arriving from Tigerland in 2005.

"It's probably the first time in my career, these last couple of years, that I've been predominantly a ruckman more than a forward playing in the ruck a bit," said Ottens, the second choice in the 1997 draft that sent Travis Johnstone to Melbourne as the No. 1 pick.

"I think a big part of playing in the ruck is having that experience and learning the ropes of it. At Richmond, I spent a lot of time up forward, so spending that time in the middle, being a ruckman who floats forward, has helped a bit, I reckon."

The move to Geelong, where "there's probably 35,000 members in this little area", took a big adjustment. "When things aren't going well at times, pressure builds up a little bit, mostly I think it's great to have that community support," he said. "I've found living in Geelong really good."

And while the dynamic has felt slightly different this year, he senses the Cats are purring along at around the same rate as they were this time last season. It is an ominous signal.