AUSTRALIA OUT-HALF QUADE Cooper will be sidelined for up to 12 weeks after fracturing his collarbone at training, team officials said on Friday.
The 26-year-old playmaker, who was out for 16 weeks last year with a shoulder joint injury, will have surgery on Tuesday.
The decision to have surgery was made on Friday after scans and a consultation with the Queensland Reds’ surgeon.
“It’s disappointing to lose Quade to such an innocuous collision during an opposed training session, but this is the nature of contact sport,” Reds coach Richard Graham said.
“Fortunately, we’ve recruited well in the off-season and we’re comfortable we have a number of options available to us.”
Cooper said he was gutted to be missing the start of the season, ”but injury setbacks are something you learn to deal with and this isn’t the first time I’ve had to come back from something like this,” he said.
“There’s a lot of excitement among the (Reds) group for the season, so it’s good motivation for me to give myself every chance of getting back on the field as soon as possible.”
Diff type of footballer these days and they aint any better they are not even good enough to stand beside Stevie/keano/,viera/scholes . All them men played ball and took and gave a tackle. All thats there now with exception of one or two is a glorified bunch of mammy boys
Bang on from Gerrard. Mings tackle looked like a sore one, may have even injured Saka badly but it was just bad luck and that’s part of contact sport! The game as a spectacle has been majorly dented by soft officiating over the past 10 years lets not make it even worse.
So just because Gerrard has screws in his hips and 16 different operations that’s means that every English player from now on needs to end up like him or they haven’t had it ‘tough’ enough. What a silly comment from Gerrard. Probably said in the heat of the moment after the defeat I hope!
@kev egan: No he’s highlighting that it’s still a contact sport. To many fairies like saka expecting a foul every time they fall down cause someone breathed on them while running. Not every bit of physical contact is a foul. It’s not basketball
@Phil Redmond: fairies….
There’s clips of Gerrard saying his Rangers players need more protection..
I’m sure Stevie would be telling Saka to toughen up if he was a Villa player…
Twas an awful fall in fairness Steve,Glad ur ok…
I’m a huge fan of Stevie but this attitude of ‘fairies vs tough men’ is nonsense. Villa kicked him off the pitch, Mings was lucky not to see red. Players who rough up players and repeatedly foul are not tough…. they’re a bit rubbish at football is all.