happy_tiger
Well-known member
@jirskyr said in [Sam Burgess](/post/1072532) said:@diedpretty said in [Sam Burgess](/post/1072524) said:Looking at the rules for relief due to medical retirement there is no way the NRL are going to give us any leeway on Matulino. He had a preexisting injury and it won't matter how many games he played for us without missing a game as it could have been reasonably predicted that the pre existing injury would eventually cause his retirement.
Do we actually know how many players have been successfully medically retired in the NRL era?
Watmong and Brett Stewart, the article says, were not awarded. Burgess signed a new contract for 4 years on 04/Sep/18.
Just a bit of research tells you that, at the very least, Burgess had shoulder issues in October 2018 when he withdrew from the England side after the end of the season. It does not specify which shoulder. In 2011 he injured a shoulder in his second year with Souths, and missed basically the entire season after doing his ankle on return.
As of 2016 Burgess had had two shoulder reconstructions on his R shoulder. The SMH report from 2 weeks ago says it's a chronic issue and relates to previous reconstructions, which intimates that it's the same R shoulder. Though, of course, in poor journalism, nobody actually states which shoulder it is, not SMH or Fox or NRL.com.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/burgess-retirement-could-leave-souths-millions-short-in-salary-cap-20191010-p52zhm.html
But every single story says either "chronic" or "degenerative". Burgess has had as many shoulder issues as young Benji did, in my head his name is synonymous with "bung shoulder".
I can't see any way that, per the rules published, Rabbits could get a salary cap exemption on the basis of shoulder retirement.
Now Matulino we know has had long-standing knee issues of one kind or another. Only a medical expert can say whether the current career-threatening injury is related to those or not. It certainly not correct to say "he's previously had knee injuries therefore the new knee injury is related", because it may be an entirely unrelated issue, just in the same area.
But, as @diedpretty noted, the NRL seem rather particular about predictable or degenerative conditions, which I would guess is a pretty big issue regarding joints. If you want to be strict about it, any injury to a joint is in all likelihood subjecting the player to predictable risk in the future. So if you do your ACL once, I believe you are always at some increased risk of further ACL, or destabilisation of the joint puts pressure on other issues like medial ligament, PCL, knee cartilage etc.
It was the same shoulder he had the issue with the staph infection nearing season's end