Well I missed that. The circumstances are unfortunate but it still means he couldn’t deliver that class we were hoping for when we needed it. There was always some risk in signing him at that age and it seemed to have worked against us.
Honestly I know it’s selfish of me but if he was in so much pain and coming off neck surgery at that age it would’ve been nice to see him miss origin and focus on being right for the back end of the year.
edit: or do you mean he just had neck surgery? If so maybe he should’ve just had it and let Jerome play.
He had his initial neck surgery in November or December after his first season with us.
It ruled him out of the Kangaroo games post season.
The surgery was reported as being a success at the time but as I understand the issue continued to plague him throughout 2019.
I think it is one of those issues NRL players will suffer from once there career is over and I don’t envy them. They need to make there money in there limited career window because when it is over most have to get a real job.
Many years ago now I was having knee surgery from my footy injuries and Terry Wickey was having knee surgery done at the same private hospital at the same time. He was in a far worse state than me and that was back in the day when players got match payments, no big fat contracts, literally cash payments for playing games. No play no pay. This was after his career was over but he was basically a cripple which I know is a horrible term but he was in a bad place at that time. Medical science and surgery has improved significantly from those days but still even the modern day NRL players must suffer later in life from the effects of there playing days.
