Space age help has Ferris floating on air

THE US space agency NASA should expect a thank you card from Stephen Ferris.

The Ulster giant’s World Cup dreams looked in tatters after a serious knee injury looked to have put his career in jeopardy earlier this season.

However, a long and complex rehab programme has fired him back to fitness and on the place to next month’s tournament in New Zealand. One of the key tools on the road to recovery was an anti-gravity treadmill developed by American scientists as part of their astronaut development programme.