Just when rookie St George Illawarra centre John Olzard thought his luck couldn't get worse after recently suffering a career- threatening knee injury, the flat he shares with Parramatta's Eric Grothe was robbed this week as he lay in bed powerless to stop the thief.
Olzard, who played for the Dragons at this year's World Sevens, is fortunate not to be paralysed in his left leg after rupturing his medial, cruciate and lateral ligaments, snapping his hamstring and tearing his calf muscle from the bone while attempting to slide underneath Shannon Hegarty and stop the Sydney Roosters international from scoring on Anzac Day.
"There was only a nerve on the side holding my knee together and if that had snapped the doctor said I wouldn't have had any feeling in my leg - ever," Olzard recalled yesterday.
Incapacitated until he recovers from surgery, the 23-year-old thinks he may have been deliberately targeted by the thief when Grothe left for training last Monday morning.
"We live on The Esplanade at Cronulla and you can see right through our place, so I think he probably scouted me out," Olzard said. "I came out on to the balcony and started yelling out to people as they walked past. A bloke nearly got him jumping a fence near the train station and he dropped my laptop, but I didn't realise at the time that he also had Eric's mobile phone, worth about $1200, which had my SIM card in it, so I've lost all my numbers, too."
Sydney Morning Herald
