EMERGING ruckman Max Bailey has agreed to a new contract and will remain with the club until at least 2008 after inking a one-year contract extension.

The 20-year-old, 206cm ruckman said it was "massive" to sign a new deal, given he will not play in 2007 after he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee at a training session in January.

Now that he has put pen to paper, Bailey is delighted he can focus fully on his recovery.

“If I'd still been out of contract at the end of the year, I'd be fretting about it all the time, so having that out of the way and just being able to focus on my rehab and footy is very good," Bailey told hawthornfc.com.au.

"A couple of weeks after I did my knee, (chief executive) Ian Robson and (football manager) Mark Evans came to me and said, 'we don't want you to worry about your contract – we're going to do it now'.

"Gavin Jahn, my manager from Frontier Sport, had been talking to the club just before I did my knee and I knew about that, but when I did my knee I was pretty worried as I'd never been through that situation before, but they were all really good."

Reflecting on his injury, Bailey said it was a "nothing incident" when it happened.

"I was chasing someone and I got bumped from the side and my knee just buckled and I didn't really know what happened. You don't really think something like that is going to happen to you," Bailey said.

"I just thought I might have done something smaller, but when they said, 'you've done you're ACL', it didn't really sink in until I knew I couldn't play for the rest of the year and then it really hit me."

Bailey said he had to wait three weeks for the swelling to subside before he could have the operation. He then watched dozens of DVDs at home before returning to the club to start his training program.

"It's been about three weeks now where I've been doing upper-body weights and it's been about two months since the op and I've been doing knee exercises from the physio – that's all I can do physically," Bailey said.

"I've also been doing a fair bit of work with the coaches, watching the opposition and helping out with ruck coach Alex Ishchenko and you get a bit out of it. So rather than sitting around and not being in footy for a year, you're still involved and able to learn."

Bailey is also swimming and cycling but said it would be another month before he could start jogging.

In the meantime, the Western Australian is enjoying some home cooking from his host family and relishing the Melbourne lifestyle.

"The lady I live with has been trying to feed me up, so they've been very good. They've been looking after me very well and they're in Hawthorn," Bailey said.

"They've got a couple of kids around my age, which makes it good as well and I'm able to talk to people away from footy.

"It took a bit of getting used to over here, as Melbourne is so much busier than Perth, but I've slowly got used to it and I really enjoy Melbourne now."