RedsHappy Can we clear this crap about TPN up? Nau was diagnosed with injuries that would put him out for the season towards the end of the S14. The Tahs doctor & Nau agreed to try some cortisone shots.If it worked he would have been OK. It didn't work, as was found out in the Aus A game. So he had to have the operations. Because of the cortisone shots he had to wait for the cortisone to clear from his system before they could operate anyway. He played wounded while it cleared knowing he could not get the injuries much worse, as a prop reserve for Aus A (because that is the way he is) and for the two blues pretty well on one leg towards the end. OK?
Awh gee, sorry FP, for posting 'crap' mate, your posts are always outstanding and correct in very detail, and you know best.
Whatever, your post above changes nothing of my assessment, so no, it's not 'OK'. First, there was open, undenied speculation by the Wallaby coaches and others in April and May (pre Baa Baas games) that TPN would likely be included in the Wallabies squad - if this was not the case, what on earth was he doing in the Baa Baas? Second, cortisone, as an active steroid, is typically administered only temporarily to reduce painful and inhibitory inflammation (and btw there are some doctors who hate it for sports injuries believing it can directly cause cartilage damage). The foot and ankle injuries (or bone spurs or whatever) must have been reasonably serious for cortisone to be considered. These were also games we were meant to win right, so what on earth are we doing using a top, key player TPN with known injuries,
twice in the same game, when there clearly is some risk of aggravation and further damage (and pain relievers are problematic in these situations as they can induce further excessive use of the injured joint as the pain is artificially suppressed, etc). My point is that all these risks to TPN's foot and maybe later recovery time (and btw potentially the game's outcome!) should have forced, not the Tahs' doctors, but the Wallaby ones, to simply say 'no play, it's not worth further aggravation and risking a more serious outcome or longer recovery times.' And that further aggravation obviously did occur in some form or another, as he was not limping when we first went on, but was when he came off the second time.
And now to give you some credit: it was you who weeks back noted that Hynes appeared to have some form of injury as you observed him in those Baa Baas games. That was of course correct, and we now have Hynes admitting that 'I came back from knee injury too quickly and didn't recover properly'. And that's precisely why he's not in RSA right now. He should never have been playing in early June, clearly, and it's the job of the Wallabies' doctors to be the unpopular enforcers in such contexts. 'Playing brave and for passion with injuries' may be OK at club level, but it's not OK when it materially can reduce the depth of resource available for a national team whose best 2010 excuses are 'injuries and lack of depth in Australian rugby'.
