Green admits injury bug has bitten hard
THE shocking diagnosis of a mild stroke for Cowboys front-rower Matt Scott has capped a terrible year of injuries for the Cowboys.
It is a year that has also included season-ending injuries to Te Maire Martin, Mitch Dunn, Ben Hampton, Justin O’neill, Kurt Baptiste and Nene Macdonald.
Hampton was ruled out after rupturing his bicep while attempting to tackle NSW Origin star Blake Ferguson in the Cowboys’ win over Parramatta in Round 10.
Macdonald, who later parted ways with the club, sustained a broken fracture to his ankle in the Cowboys’ loss to Melbourne at 1300SMILES Stadium only five games into his three-year deal.
Both O’neill and Martin sustained unusual injuries, with the former copping a blow in the Cowboys’ win over Canberra that caused his spleen to rupture in a similar way to car crash victims.
Martin has failed to return to the field after scans earlier in the season revealed a bleed on his brain.
Utility hooker Kurt Baptiste was ruled out for the year with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament he picked up during the NRL representative round, while Mitch Dunn required surgery to repair a ruptured shoulder midway through the season.
The devastation of the long-term injuries at the club has only been compounded by niggles to stars including Michael Morgan, who missed four weeks with concussion, Jason Taumalolo, who missed five weeks with an ACL injury, and Jordan Kahu, who missed a combined seven weeks with a shoulder injury and fractured eye-socket.
While Green will not use the injury toll as an excuse for where the club sits on the NRL ladder with three rounds remaining, he admitted it was not like anything he had experienced before.
“I have never experienced (anything like this) in my time in rugby league, which is a long time since the early 1990s. I have never experienced so much at the one time,” he said.
Scott is unlikely to return in the final rounds of the season as he continues his recovery in hospital in Brisbane.
Ben Hampton is a slim chance of returning to face former club Melbourne in the final round, but said he would not risk re-injury to his bicep if it was not at 100 per cent.
“I won’t be risking my arm at all, to go on break and be injured it is not a good thing, I will have to rehab the whole thing again,” Hampton said.