BLAME GAME
THERE HAVE been long periods since the accident where it has been all about me. It’s my injury and it’s my nightmare.
It’s been my torment and it’s been my emotions.
But what I wasn’t fully aware of was how much of an impact that the injury had on my loved ones.
I didn’t know that Teigan lay awake, without so much as a minute of sleep, crying the entire night of the accident.
It would be six months after the accident before I would learn of the phone call Teigan received the moment I had hung up from my mum from inside the dressing rooms at AAMI Park.
“Kate was hysterical. I have never heard anyone scream so loud and so violently like that in my life,” Teigan would tell me.
I didn’t know that Mum, Dad and Teigan flew down to Melbourne from Newcastle at 6am the next morning.
I didn’t know they had to go through a back entry at the hospital because of the media pack outside the Alfred Hospital.
And as I lay there heavily-sedated in hospital after the accident, I certainly wasn’t aware of the opinion being voiced by some current players, commentators and experts that the tackle was partly my fault because I had ducked my head into my chest, prior to the crushing impact with the turf.
I understand people are free to have their say, I get that absolutely. It’s one of the reasons why I am able to tell my story.
But I would ask every single one of them one simple question, including Melbourne Storm captain Cameron Smith, who (given his comments on the field at the time) was obviously of the view that me losing all feeling in my arms and legs is my fault because I had ducked my head.
“We’ve had two lifting tackles against us where our boys have been put in a more dangerous position than that,’’ Smith told referee Gerard Sutton, just moments after I was carried down the tunnel.
“We can’t help when he ducks his head into the ground.
“It’s unfortunate and I don’t want to see that happen any time in our game, but if he doesn’t duck his head — that doesn’t happen.’’
If you were in an identical situation, what would you do?
If you were about to get dropped on your head, what exactly would be your response?The outpouring of blame by people who I once had great respect for was nothing short of disgusting. It made my family sick to the stomach.I would not wish the situation I find myself in today on my worst enemy — but I would be interested to see what those people would do if they were, indeed, dropped on their head.
When you have two people holding your arms and someone weighing 115kg lifting your legs up off the ground, I’m sorry, but what are you going to do?
In its simplest form, it’s similar to having a bucket of water tossed at your face.
Do you twist, turn or duck to escape copping a bucket full of water? Or do you happily cop the cold water straight in your eyes?
If someone is about to punch you in the face, do you try and duck and move, or do you keep still and wear the hit?
It’s a reflex thing.
In hindsight, I would give anything to have broken every bone in my face instead of having my neck bear the brunt of the impact.
But that didn’t happen and I can’t change it.
The outpouring of blame by people who I once had great respect for was nothing short of disgusting.
It made my family sick to the stomach.
People close to me, people involved in the NRL every day, have not spoken to the people involved with the Melbourne Storm once since the accident.
And they have no intention of doing so in the future.
I don’t want or crave anyone’s sympathy, as sympathy will not change my predicament.
I have played the game since I was five. I have witnessed incidents on the field that happen in a split second that can’t be taken back or changed.
Things just happen.
But take a look at the replay of my tackle on YouTube and you don’t need to look at it twice to know that this wasn’t just another lifting tackle.
Take a good look at the faces of every player on the field at AAMI Park that night.
Watch my old mate from Scone, Newcastle hooker Adam Clydesdale, who preparing to collect the football after I had played-the-ball, looks down at the perilous state I’m in and in shock ... begins taking as many steps backwards as he can.
Too distraught, watch Adam stand as far away as me as possible when the medical staff arrive.
The match was brought to one of the longest standstills in recent memory.
Almost 10-minutes had passed from the moment I was tackled to the time I was stretchered from the field.
Again, almost 10 minutes. When was the last time you saw any professional sport brought to a halt for that long?
This wasn’t just another injury. Everyone at the ground and at home watching knew it was serious.
Except Cameron Smith.
But if my dream had come true to captain Australia, I know I would’ve had the decency to at least get in touch with someone in my situation via a phone call or text message after the accident, especially if I had witnessed the distressing scenario with my own eyes.
That’s the type person I am.
I have not heard from the person claiming “It’s all my fault” once since the accident.
The Australian captain heard my screams and surely he would’ve noticed the white terror on my face.
To his credit, at least Jordan McLean made that effort to reach out.
I was not in an emotional or mental state to converse with him at the time.
He sent me a text message about four months after the accident. I could not bring myself to read it, but it was a long message that filled the entire screen of my mobile phone.
I understand that it was just a football game and he would never have meant for this to happen to me.
But it did and, by the letter of the NRL rule book, it was an illegal tackle.
It’s like driving a car.
If you do something illegal whilst driving that car and you render somebody for the rest of their life in a wheelchair, you pay the consequences.
Now I understand that the six months afterwards would’ve been a difficult time for Jordan.
But I can bet a million dollars it’s been a lot harder for my parents or Teigan, who without so much as a raised eyebrow, spend every morning getting me ready and draining my catheter bag every few hours.
Jordan McLean was suspended by the NRL match review committee for seven weeks.
I was still in hospital in Melbourne when the NRL match review committee laid their charge against Jordan McLean, so I didn’t spend too much time, if any at all, concerning myself with how many weeks he would serve out of the game.
But I do remember being told one thing, which I found ill-timed and off-putting.
I was told that the Melbourne Storm “would not be appealing the seven-match ban of Jordan McLean in respect to Alex McKinnon.”
Wow.
So, does that mean that they had grounds to appeal the suspension, but chose not to because of the delicate situation that I was in?
Did they think they may have had successfully had the suspension quashed or downgraded?
I don’t think the Melbourne Storm needed to make a statement like that.
Hopefully they never have to consider a statement like that ever again.
I’ve obviously had a lot of time to think about my tackle and lifting tackles in general since my accident.
The actual tackle technique implemented in my tackle wasn’t rare. You see them all the time.
So I ask, can the game do a better job of policing lifting tackles? I note that the NRL went public only a few weeks after my accident with a declaration of ‘cracking down’ on lifting tackles.
I have my own thoughts.
I have been involved in hundreds of tackles where I have failed to hear the referee call “held” — the call that declares the tackle complete.
We have two referees on the field in today’s game and I feel that there’s an opportunity for the “ruck referee” to become a more effective enforcer when it comes to policing all tackles, and stop them going horribly wrong.
I would suggest to the NRL that they consider something that the AFL umpires use regularly to police foul play, which is nothing more than the blow of a whistle.
A short sharp whistle, from the referee standing only a metre away from the tackle, would take away the excuse that a player “failed to hear” the referee call “held”. And the pocket referee would have a bird’s eye view of everything: he would be able to immediately penalise lifting, or any illegal impingement of the arms or legs.
If those three defenders had heard the shrill of a whistle the moment that my back leg was lifted, or the moment that hand was placed between my legs, I wonder if I would’ve landed differently?
I wonder every single day.
