Talking to the Advertiser, Tom was full of praise for fitness coach Andy Liddell for helping him through the difficult phase on the sidelines and also looked forward to the squad being back at full strength.
Pope said, firstly of last season: "It was a poor season injury wise and it's been the worst time of my professional career. I've done my ankle ligaments a couple of times but I've never been out for nearly five months before in my life.
"It does drag when you're injured. I had nearly three-and-a-half months not being able to do anything. All I could do was go to the swimming pool, and that wasn't until three months was up.
"You're sat at home watching programmes like Jeremy Kyle. If there's football on you feel a lot happier! "here are 46 games in a season plus the cups. There's everything to play for and when you're part of everything then Wembley is the pinnacle of it all. That's what you work towards and to get injured three or four weeks before Wembley was heart-breaking.
"It was hard but I have to say that Andy Liddell has been brilliant with me. Even on my days off he's had me in when everyone else has been off. He's driven in from Leeds and taken me running around Don Valley and just helped me get back to where I need to be. He has been a major plus for me getting to this stage."
Pope has netted three times in two reserve games on the comeback trail and came on as sub in last weeks draw with Burton. He continued: "It would have been a lot nicer to come on with us comfortably leading. It's never nice to come on in a game like that when you have been 3-0 up and got pegged back to 3-3.
"It was backs-against-thewall stuff and it was impossible to get a foothold in the game and create anything. Having said that it was great to be back in the squad and hopefully next time I'll be coming on when we've got a 3-0 lead rather than having blown a 3-0 lead.
"There will be healthy competition once Tails (Ryan Taylor) is back," added Pope. "There will be a lot of strikers on our hands and the gaffer will have some difficult decisions.
"Once the squad is all together and everyone is fully fit then on paper I think we've the best squad in the division, not just to do well in this league but the one above."