Paasi shouldering pain in every tackle
AGNATIUS Paasi is playing through even more pain than he did last season to the extent where he holds fear about each and every contact.
Paasi did not miss a match last year but required injections and strapping to help him handle a troublesome right shoulder, which he had reconstructed in the offseason.
The quietly spoken frontrower returned in time for Round 1 this season but three weeks later did further damage to that same shoulder, fracturing the blade.
It forced him back to the sidelines for two months and is continuing to give him grief.
“It is worse this year because of the fractured shoulder blade,” Paasi said ahead of the Titans’ away clash with Penrith tomorrow.
“That’s where it is sore at the moment … I try to get treatment on it every day.
“When I go into each tackle I am pretty scared but I have got a job to do and it’s been all right.”
It’s a situation that has left him to revert to pre-game painkillers, which he expects will be needed throughout the remainder of the season.
He doesn’t however expect to go under the knife again in the 2017/18 offseason.
“It’s just too close to the last injury so just going to let that heal pretty much,” he said.
Paasi has managed to put those concerns aside to show signs of returning to the career-best form he produced early last year.
He celebrated his 50th appearance for the Titans with a win over premiers Cronulla last Saturday, in which he ran the ball for 141m and did not miss a tackle.
Despite persistent online reports that he is off-contract, the Tongan-born 25-year-old is actually locked in at the Gold Coast until the end of 2018.
Paasi added the imminent departure of close mate Leivaha Pulu to the Warriors won’t have an impact on his own future beyond next year, with his family settled on the Coast.
“When I go back (to New Zealand) in the off-season I’ll probably try to catch up with him (Pulu) and see the newborn,” he said. “But yeah we’ll be close mates, that’s footy. We’ll keep in touch anyway.”
Paasi has been named on the bench for tomorrow’s game.