Moriarty: My back was so bad they wouldn’t operate
WHEN Ross Moriarty strides into the gladiator’s pit today, jaws in Cardiff should hit the floor. Moriarty — a Lion last summer — has returned for his 18th cap from a blow so bad he could not feel his legs, and four surgeons refused to operate, fearing one slight mistake would end his career.
For Wales’ 23-year-old No 8, kick-off will be a blessed relief. In June, playing for the Lions against the Provincial Barbarians in Whangerei, he managed 80 minutes with two slipped discs in his back.
‘Somehow I stayed on the pitch,’ he said. ‘I was in the Lions team and all I wanted to do was be able to play and continue my time there but my body wouldn’t let me.’
The injury was much worse than he realised. ‘Two of the discs slipped in my back and jammed into the nerves of my legs, so the muscles on my legs stopped working,’ he explained.
‘Sometimes I’d stand up and the nerve would get jammed by the disc and I’d fall.’
Over the next few months, he was reduced to a wreck.
He added: ‘I couldn’t run, stand on one leg, walk upstairs or downstairs. It was quite a tough time.
‘It wasn’t until the doctor saw that the reflex in my knee had stopped working that they realised how bad it was.’
Amazingly, Moriarty did return for Gloucester in November, only for the problems to resurface.
‘A tear in my disc was leaking fluid on to my knee again, so that was giving me a lot of problems in my leg,’ he added.
‘No surgeon would go in there because they said it was too close to the nerve, and if they damaged it, that would basically be me done. ‘I was really worried and upset.’ He sought solace from his family.
His father Paul could empathise most, having suffered his fair share of knocks winning 21 Wales caps. The dark time became worse when Moriarty announced he would be moving clubs —from Gloucester to the Dragons — next season.
He had to, as with fewer than 60 caps he would be ineligible for Wales if he stayed in England. It sparked social media trolls to crawl out — questioning his loyalty to the club that made him, leaving the back-rower fuming with a minority of supporters. ‘There are a lot of people who say things on the internet who have never had any experience in rugby, but act like they’ve coached the All Blacks,’ he said. ‘That is the sad reality.’ Luckily Moriarty’s thoughts can finally turn to the hardly trivial matter of beating Scotland today. Warren Gatland, on the day that marks the tenth anniversary since his first Wales Test, knows that the home crowd expect them to win. Yet, while Scotland are an unproven force away from home in the Six Nations, there can be no doubting their vim, vigour and voraciousness going in. Indeed, it would also be foolish in the extreme to discount their summer tour victory in Sydney — surely evidence that they can hold their own away from Murrayfield. Gergor Townsend’s men backed that up with a record home triumph against the Wallabies in the autumn Test series, while also pushing the All Blacks closer than they have done in quite some time. For Moriarty, however, it is just a case of being grateful for the chance to bash people again. ‘I will be relieved to walk off the pitch in one piece, but I’ll walk onto the pitch as if it’s my last international,’ he said.