Photo of Paul Gallen relaxing on the NSW South Coast during the 2008/2009 off season.FACING six weeks out with injury, Cronulla's world champion whinging dog Paul Gallen has called for all NRL trial games to be banned, because he got hurt, the poor diddums.
Gallen will learn today if a twinge in his knee is in fact a serious knee injury as he is telling everyone. The news it was a serious injury was surprising as no-one knew he was a doctor until now.
Teammates Maitua (ankle), Tupou (neck) and Jacob Selmes (collarbone) also collected injuries during the trial match. This reporter thinks they should collect something safer, like stamps or shells. Injuries are a bad hobby to get onto collecting.
Maitua, like Gallen, will have scans today but could be out for up to 12 weeks or maybe forever, or maybe a week, we don't know, but 12 weeks sounds good.
Gallen super duper hyper extended his knee and is looking at a recovery of between two and six weeks, with Curranulla's forward depth already stretched after losing Greg "I'm so hard I glass girls" Bird and Fraser "Mr $400,000" Anderson.
"Personally I would like it (trial matches banned)," Gallen sobbed yesterday. "I think if everyone agrees to it, it would save injuries and everyone would be on the same level. In 2002, I did an ankle in trials, in '04 I hurt my hamstring. In '06 it was my back and in '07 I injured my ankle and missed nine games. Sounds like you are crap Gallen and are not ready for the season!
"It probably sounds like I'm whingeing NOOOOOO!!!! Reeeeeeeeeallyy???? and I know there are games like the Charity Shield, but trial games can give clubs a heap of injuries. As opposed to regular season games where you run through injury free Everyone holds their breath in trial games. Maybe you should try and breathe more, maybe you wouldn't get injured so much
Trial matches should be banned but would that reduce the risk of injury? Not bloody likely. It would only push the injuries into the first few rounds WHERE THE WEAK WOULD BE ELIMINATED!! This is Darwinism in effect. This is where the blokes who are not ready for contact sports are eliminated and taken out before the season proper begins.
It was great to see Gallens own coach, Tricky Stuart, contradict him and say that "... trials are a necessary evil." Speak to your coach about your complaint Gallen so you don't look like a uninformed brain dead invertebrate when you sob to the media, hang on, there is NOTHING you could do to not come off as anuninformed brain dead invertebrate!!
Roosters coach Brad Fittler said trials "serve a purpose" while Bulldogs coach Kevin Moore said injuries simply happen in rugby league.
It is nice to know that the Bulldogs might actually have someone with half a brain on board this year.
Reporter--Mike Oxwollen
