There will always be injuries when playing sports but for Ethen Lowe it wasn’t the case. He need look no further than the abrupt end to his own NRL career for proof the league’s crackdown on foul play had to come. Lowe was forced into a medical retirement last year after rupturing a disc in his neck and suffering spinal cord damage as a result of a crusher tackle. The injury came at the worst possible time for Lowe, who had only made his Queensland State of Origin debut the previous year when he starred in the decider.
Lowe states that “It’s definitely made it hard, realistically I was hoping to play another three or four years. I was only 29 at the time of the injury. I wasn’t old, I was in the middle of my career. There is always those types of things you want to keep doing, you want to do more. But then I look back and think what I was able to achieve as a footy player. I was part of some pretty special things in my time.”
Lowe still has on going issues from the damage the injury has caused him as well as other major injures he has sustained during his time with the NRL, but he classes them as manageable. He states that he still shudders when he sees a crusher tackle, knowing the damage it did to him.
Lowe goes on to quote that “As a footy player before the injury I wasn’t thinking you would end up with a spinal cord injury from it. That’s not something that goes through your head. And now I’ve been able to see the consequences first hand, it’s definitely positive they are cracking down as hard as they are. It’s one of those things, sometimes it just ends up in an awkward situation which is not what you want. There are times when it is unavoidable and unfortunately people get suspended for stuff that is out of their control. But you have to crack down on all of them so they get the point across.”
