Reflections on Sale Sharks 21 Worcester Warriors 3

By Whaley Shark
January 11 2014

This isn't really a match report- more a reflection on last night's events......

The ingredients were a match in a cup competition where our opponents, Worcester, desperately worried about their Premiership status, had no chance of qualifying, whereas we fancied our chances. So we put out a decent side, while a good few of the Worcester players were there just ‘to gain experience’. Add in a cold drizzly evening in January, and just over 3000 fans at the A J Bell and you’ve the makings of a bit of a nothing match. And that’s how it turned out, as we outgunned Worcester in a routine win by twenty-one points to three and three tries to none.

But it wasn’t a nothing match for Worcester’s Paul Warwick, flattened just over an hour in, treated for 15 minutes on the pitch, then blue-lighted to hospital with a suspected neck injury, and that set me thinking a bit.

Every time they go over the white line, indeed many times they train, the players risk career-ending and potentially even life-changing injury. The best they can hope for is ten years or so at the top, and many will have much less time than that, if they make it at all. Only relatively few earn enough money from the game to set themselves up for life. Many who play at a high level with have life-long health problems as a result. Nevertheless, these guys are far, far better players than most watching from the stands, terraces, or sofa, ever were, are or will be.

Just pulling on a Sale or a Worcester shirt represents a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears, training on cold dark evenings, sweating in a hot pre-season, or flogging away in the gym. For every one who gets even that far, there are many who fall by the wayside through injury, loss of motivation, a stroke of bad luck, or just not quite having ‘it’- the Selorm Kuadeys or David Taits, and many, many others, of the professional rugby world.

I think we need to remember all this a bit more when we yell criticism from the stand, or hit ‘Post’, to have a go at ‘schoolboy errors’, ‘sloppy performances’, or ‘unmotivated players’. Players are people too- they’re somebody’s son, husband, father, brother, and we should remember the risks they run and sacrifices they make for our entertainment. 

I gather the injury isn't serious and I wish Paul Warwick a quick and full recovery.