There is a lot of talk today centring around Kai Pearce-Paul, Wigan Warriors and Newcastle Knights.
The London born second-row who can also play centre made his name at Wigan over the last three seasons even making his England debut at last year’s World Cup against Greece.
Year on year we have seen him flourish as a player with his lanky figure a nightmare for defences to deal with whilst his offloading ability made him a further attacking threat but when he emerged at Wigan he was a raw player but has been moulded into the typical hard working Wigan forward we have come to expect but with the flash of brilliance that makes him so dangerous.
It is this special ability that has led to comparisons to Sonny Bill Williams and the second-row was quickly on the radar of NRL clubs resulting in his move to Newcastle Knights ahead of 2024 which was confirmed this time last year.
This allowed him to help Wigan to Grand Final glory against Catalans Dragons as he was a key player throughout the season. But now he has arrived at Newcastle and has a serious foot injury with a club official complaining that Wigan were playing him on pain killing injections.
The quotes from the unnamed Newcastle source can be seen below: “His foot has serious problems and we are still doing tests but at this early stage it doesn’t look good.
“If he needs surgery he probably won’t be fit for the early stages of the season.
“He pulled out of the Test series against Tonga hoping to get the foot right but we are getting reports that he played a lot of last season with pain-killing needles at Wigan, which we are not very happy about.
“Hopefully he can get over it and avoid the knife. We will just have to wait and see.”
But these complaints aren’t really valid. This is quite common practice in rugby league and wider sport. Granted it can sometimes dramatically backfire as we saw with Keith Senior in the 2005 Challenge Cup Final for Leeds Rhinos but many others have played on these kind of pain killers.
Paul Anderson once played a number of games whilst suffering with a broken toe due to similar injections so it is widely done especially when there is something big at stake such as a Grand Final.
At the end of the day, Pearce-Paul was Wigan’s player and they made the right decision for them and the player in question at that point. They weren’t going to favour Newcastle’s interests, it wasn’t like he was on loan at the club last year.
Also, I’m sure if you asked Pearce-Paul he would say the same thing given he got to play in and win a Grand Final.
Quite rightly some Wigan fans are mad with one jokingly playing out this scene: “Sorry Kai we’re not going to play you in the Grand Final because we need you ready for the nights next year.”
Another said: “Are Newcastle Knights crazy?”
