NRL’s unluckiest players: Mal Meninga, Kyle Stanley, Tim Moltzen top list of injury prone stars

Tim Sheens refuses to use the word injury-prone, despite coaching some players who seemed to constantly broke down. Here are some of the unluckiest players in NRL history.

Injury prone: NRL's unluckiest players revealed, Tim Moltzen, Mal Meninga, Brent Tate.

A couple of weeks ago, Tim Sheens did 50 push-ups. Straight.

He had just challenged his Wests Tigers squad to complete a drill he thought they’d stuff up. When they didn’t, they all got in a circle and watched their coach walk to the middle.

“He just drops and does 50 straight, bro. He’s 72 years old,” said one player.

Which perhaps goes some way to explaining why, for one of most experienced coaches the game has ever seen, the term “injury prone” isn’t exactly in his rugby league vocabulary.

Often applied to players whose bodies constantly break down, Sheens wonders why it was never attached to someone like Mal Meninga, who broke his arm five times.

By the time Meninga was done, he had captained Canberra to three premierships, played 46 games for his country, and is one of eight NRL immortals.

“Was he injury prone?” Sheens asks.

“No, of course not. He just broke down five times.”

Some feared another player who came under the watch of Sheens, whose 669 games coached still sits second all time, was so banged up he wouldn’t make it past 50 games.

“Benji did five shoulders … and still played 300,” Sheens said.

“Was he injury prone?”

Shawn Blore is one of the unluckiest players in the game right now, having been limited to just 18 games in three years. Picture: Getty Images.

Which brings us to Shawn Blore, the Penrith prodigy pinched by the Wests Tigers on a Two-and-a-half year deal midway through 2020.

What followed was a horror three-year stretch that has included two knee reconstructions, major surgery on both wrists, and a chronic back issue that complicated his recovery.

“There were some points in the rehab that I just wanted to stop. I was so sick of coming in and doing the same thing over and over again,” he said.

The Tigers had invested so much time and money into him, and all he had to show for it was a paltry 18 games. He didn’t want to think about the prospect of retiring at 22.

His contract was up, and so might be his career.

Did Sheens, who was eventually appointed as head coach for the next two years, and Marshall, his successor, think Blore was injury prone?

Answer: For the first time in over 500 days, Blore will take the field when the Tigers play their final trial against Canberra at Belmore Oval on Sunday.

And the 22-year-old is as determined as ever to repay the club for a two-year extension.

“I was never really felt the pressure of a contract situation up until this point in my life. I remember thinking, ‘god I’m injured, what am I going to do?” Blore said.

“They showed a lot of faith and offered a contract. I just lit up, like face lit up.

“I’ll never forget that.

“I’ve said it a few times in a few different people, I’m unproven, man. I haven’t done anything in the NRL. I feel like I’m indebted and gotta repay that faith.”

For Sheens, he refuses to use the word “injury-prone” for a player who was pencilled in to start in the second row last year and is primed to be their long-term answer on the right edge.

It can be revealed Isaiah Papali’i will switch from his customary side to play on the left, with Blore likely to play a bench role.

“He’s had horrendous luck,” Sheens said.

“I felt the kid was worth another opportunity. I’ve seen the talent. I seen his attitude, preparing himself. It’s just up to the injury gods as to whether or not they’ll look after him.”

Originally published as NRL’s unluckiest players: Mal Meninga, Kyle Stanley, Tim Moltzen top list of injury prone stars