Jake Knight was racing for a $40,000 cheque last week and he kept his jet boots on to blow the Queanbeyan Whites away at Viking Park on Saturday.
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The part-time sprinter and hard-working winger spent last weekend at Australia's richest running race but fell one spot shot of a semi-final berth at the Stawell Gift.
Less than a week later he made his comeback for the Tuggeranong Vikings, scoring 27 seconds after being injected into the game in a 59-15 romp in the John I Dent Cup.
Making it even more remarkable is the fact Knight, 27, is doing it all with a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament and no posterior cruciate ligament.
Knight put rugby preparations on hold in the off-season to focus on sprinting at Gift carnivals around the country but the event at Stawell was the least of the campaign.
The lure of playing 100 first-grade games for Tuggeranong drew him back to rugby and he didn't disappoint in his 96th appearance.
His try after half-time broke Queanbeyan's back and then he scored again in a brief appearance on the field in his comeback.
"We went pretty well, we went down to Stawell so that was pretty good as well," Knight said.
"But I made the semi-finals in the 70 metre and the 100 metre sprints, so that's life after rugby for me.
"I think that's the path I'll go down when I stop playing.
“I did of sprinting at school but never professionally so this was the first season.
"I want to get to that 100 caps for Tuggeranong and I've had itchy feet the last couple of weeks, but it's good to be back now."
The Vikings stamped themselves as the John I Dent Cup premiership favourites with a thumping win against the Whites in a grand final re-match.
The Whites got a sniff just at the end of the first half when they closed the gap to 11 points.
But Knight's try from the kick-off and five more led to a cruisy triumph.
The Vikings piled on 40 unanswered points before Queanbeyan centre William Chalker scored a consolation try in the dying seconds of the match.
Vikings flyhalf Isaac Thompson produced a masterful display of kicking and controlling the tempo while Ben Hyne and Iosua Tonga belted the Whites at every opportunity.
"It just came down to who wanted it more," said Queanbeyan coach Adam Fahey.
"They came out [Tonga's] lead up play to Knight's try after half-time made us look stupid. We never recovered from that.
"We kept coming and finished the game off, but it was unacceptable from our first-grade side.
“We need to set the standard for the club."
