It appears that my season is finished.
I’ve torn a tendon off my kneecap. It’s not terrible like an ACL but the healing process takes so long. It takes four weeks to heal and then two weeks at least if rehab is good and that’s before even running again.
Someone landed on my leg and it bent awkwardly just after half-time of the Hull FC game. I managed to play through with it but it just got worse and worse.
What I’m concerned about is that others will pick up injuries from being in similar situations to me.
I was really banged up heading into that game and wasn’t supposed to be playing after playing in the Warrington game, but Truey pulled up with his back injury so I ended up taking his place.
Teams are getting desperate for points and for wins and players are going to play to try and help their team. We’re in a tough spot but we needed that win. I don’t think most of us would have played in certain games otherwise.
It’s going to impact the whole of the sport especially with the Challenge Cup and having so many games in such a short period of time. Points are getting vital and if you lose you have to make it up somehow.
Coaches will never force it upon you to play if you’re injured and I wasn’t put in that position, but everyone is going to back up injured to help their team out and the reality is that more injuries will happen as a result of that.
Fatigue causes injuries, not just because your body breaks down but your decision making is impacted too. If you watch the tackle I was injured in, Oggy comes into the tackle and he’s said that he was tired but just trying to make a tackle for his team.
The rules alone mean you have to make important decisions under fatigue in every tackle. Doing it with two days recovery is a massive factor in your decision making. There are certain decisions in games I don’t think I’d have made if I’d had a full break or proper preparation. I didn’t even do the captain’s run before that game, I went two days without doing anything to playing.
But players won’t say no, that’s the big thing and the bit that worries me. We’re stubborn and we want to play and know we need to. Every player is going to say yes and that’s going to cause more fatigue, more risks and more injuries.
With what we went through with the Wire game to Hull FC, it was tough, to be honest, then we had to do the Thursday too. It was very hard.
What concerns me, even more, is that clubs are going to start running out of players and young kids are now going to be asked to do it, they’ve not been playing for a long time and now they’re going to be asked to do it when they’re not conditioned to the intensity yet. It’s really concerning.
But at the same time, no player will say no.
