IT’S not often that you get a rugby league player that can still play at the top of their game with only one eye.
However, for Warrington Wolves forward and new signing Josh McGuire, that is exactly what he is doing – and has been doing – for the good part of a decade.
As a 21-year-old, McGuire was playing with the Brisbane Broncos, with whom he made 194 appearances for, when he got a stray finger to the eye.
That isn’t all, the after-effects were gruesome to say the least and now the 32-year-old has spoken honestly about the incident.
“In 2011 I was at the Broncos and I got a finger in my eye, I got a poke by accident,” McGuire told League Express.
“My eye collapsed so I detached my retina and tore my iris and the pupil.
“I didn’t know it was that bad, I actually went out drinking that night. I was 21 and I felt my eye collapse when I was out drinking. I felt the fluid of my eye draining on my face.
“I called the specialist and we went to emergency and, after a few operations later, they put it all together and blew it up.
“The lights are on but nobody’s home in that eye. It’s there for looks, but it is what it is.”
McGuire also went on to explain how doctors’ diagnoses spurred him on to make the best of what he could.
“I got told I couldn’t play footy but I told my kids if you wanted something bad enough you would do figure out how to it.
“Nobody should tell you you can’t do anything. I can’t remember what I was like when I had two eyes.”
The hulking forward also went on to joke about how his blindness in one eye doesn’t affect him in the middle, but that it might do out wide!
“If I was winger it would affect me catching high balls! I played through State of Origin and Australia, so I hadn’t done anything in the game until my eye issue.
“It gave me the drive to sort my self out.”
