THEY say that good things come to those who wait. For Dael Fry, however, the wait turned out to be a fair bit longer than was initially anticipated.

When the Middlesbrough centre-half suffered a pelvic injury last February, it was expected that he would need a few weeks on the sidelines. The initial injury proved more troublesome than first thought, though, and Fry was unable to return in the final two-and-a-half months of the campaign.

To make matters worse, when he did try to step up his recovery programme, other niggling problems emerged, so he was forced to sit out the whole of this summer’s pre-season period.

Even when the current campaign began, Fry was still on the sidelines, and it was only in the middle of last month when he was finally given the green light to resume full training and return to Boro’s matchday squad.

On Saturday, after an absence of almost ten months, the 27-year-old finally returned to the starting line-up. It did not take him long to highlight what Michael Carrick’s side had missed in his absence.

Playing alongside George Edmundson at the heart of the back four, Carrick oozed class and composure as he helped Boro see off Hull City. Despite his multiple injury issues, it was like he had never been away, a state of affairs that says much for his dedication, professionalism and commitment to the cause.

“I was delighted for Dael,” said Carrick, whose fifth-placed side face a test of promotion credentials on Friday evening when they head to Turf Moor to take on second-placed Burnley. “Really, genuinely delighted for him.

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“It’s been a long road for him being away from the glitz and the glamour of a match-day. He’s been grinding away behind the scenes for a long time and having the odd setback here and there with knocks and niggles.

“It’s been a long time in the end, but credit to him, he’s in great shape - probably as good a shape as I’ve seen him in my whole time here. Fitness-wise, how he looks and how he’s training, it takes that to come in for a game like that.

“It was physical, and there were quite big distances to cover for him and George. He dealt with it so well, and you can’t do that unless you’ve prepared well. Credit to him for how hard he’s worked over however many months it’s been now, to come into a game like that and do so well.”

The hardest injuries to deal with and overcome are often the ones that initially appear innocuous, but which gradually morph into more troublesome complaints.

That was the case with Fry, with an initial problem with his pelvic region causing muscular niggles in other parts of his body. Then, when he did try to step up his workload, he found himself having to deal with related issues that meant he had to scale back his training just as he was wanting to kick on.

The upshot was that he was sidelined for the best part of a year, a hugely frustrating outcome, but one that was necessary to give himself the best possible chance of staying fit once he was eventually deemed fit enough to return.

“That’s the frustrating part,” said Carrick. “The original injury wasn’t meant to keep him out so long. Then, a niggle here and there and, all of a sudden, you’re out for that length of time.

“It’s been really stop-start for him. But, in some ways, he comes in fresh and it’s a restart for him now. Now, it’s hopefully all positive and he can have a good run of being in the squad. We’ve got great options back there, so game to game, we’ll make decisions.”

With Rav van den Berg also currently sidelined, and Darragh Lenihan a long-term absentee, there would have been an understandable temptation to thrust Fry straight back into the starting line-up last month.

Instead, Carrick opted to be patient, introducing the centre-half from the substitutes’ bench in the win over Luton before finally restoring him to the starting side at the weekend.

“We definitely played the long game to make sure he was ready,” said the Boro boss. “We could have tried to get him back (earlier), he's been training for a number of weeks. But, sometimes, you have to take a step back and look at it. We have good players as well, so we were able to do that.”