NZ Warrior said:
If these players have been playing injured for the entire season, then what's another 3-4 games??? It's obviously very serious if the Tigers keep on playing them. Under your logic, the Tigers would have booked them in for surgery when the regular season was over.
Yet they are fit enough to play in the finals series. Why are they not fit for another few international games???
This thing about the clubs paying the wages, so they should get final say is just not going to work. The International Federation might as well throw in the towel and give up all hope of building a strong international competition.
This has been debated to death, but the International Federation has to work with the NRL & ESL, set in place some strong guidelines and try to find a place for international League during the regular season.
you have to realise that at the moment thats unrealistic. As you stated it is spot on that the clubs pay the players wages. Benji will have surgery immedietly after the Tigers are knocked out or win the comp. This way he will have time to fully recover and have a full off season of training with the tigers...
if you goes on tour he comes back a few weeks late, has surgery and misses the start off offseason training which means he runs behind schedule in fitness strength and can risk causing more damage to the shoulder.
But hey wat do NZ care hes played the 3 games he had to or watever. The club is his employer and has every right to want him to be right for the beginning of pre season training, if he could tour and not be affected by the start of pre season thats a dif issue.
the injury is obviously not critical if he is playing but the simple fact is it needs to be done and hes got an obligation to the tigers for 24 + rounds and obviously the tigers expect him at 100% when the first trial comes around.
i agree with you, in an ideal world something should be done, but your talking about players health here. its not that they arent interested in touring. Imagine if benji went there damaged his shoulder and was out for 6-12 months. Similar to mason this yr.
Anyway my 2 cents worth