‘No grudges’ against rugby

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 6

‘No grudges’ against rugby

pA Auckland Three young rugby players paralysed on the paddock this season say they hold no grudges against the game for their injuries.

The trio still follow the sport avidly from wheelchairs at the Otara spinal unit and will be back on the sidelines when they are discharged in three to six months.

Ambulance attendants were quickly on the field, preventing movement. McMurray said a player was stuck on the ground beneath him for 30min until he could be moved. “I don’t blame rugby — there are more people in the spinal unit with diving injuries than with rugby injuries,” he said.

“Mum asked me that morning not to play at hooker because hookers always broke their necks. As it was, the coach found another guy to hook and I went back to being a flanker.”

Gary McMurray, aged 19, who broke his neck in May in his first game for the Helensville senior side, lies in bed surrounded by rugby memorabilia.

Mark says he does not condemn rugby. He played knowing the risks. “But if by some miracle, I got better, I wouldn’t be dumb enough to play it again. I’d look a real fool if I broke my back twice.”

A customer service sales co-ordinator for Omnicorp, McMurray has been offered his old job back.

A colour picture of the All Black captain, Wayne Shelford, surrounded by autographs from the North Harbour team, adorns the wall along with the club tie. McMurray wards off the cold with a Helensville team scarf wrapped round his head. The day he was hurt he had been asked to stand by on the reserves bench and took the field when another player did not show up. His father had warned him he might not be ready for the senior side but McMurray said he was very fit and had played against many large guys. The accident left him paralysed from the chest down. ;

Mark, aged 18, a Waikato University student who prefers to remain anonymous, remembers realising instantly his accident had paralysed him. “I lay on the ground counting off on my fingers all the things I wouldn’t be able to do any more,” he said.

Tupou Efutonga Selupe, aged 22, suffered an accident in April, only three months after arriving in New Zealand for a twoyear naval course at Devonport. He broke his neck in a tackle three minutes into a game for the officers’ training school.

Only six weeks after the accident, Mark sat two half-year examinations in English and economics. His accident happened at the end of a game between his University under 19 team and City Tigers.

Like Mark, he knew instantly he was paralysed as he lay, numb from the neck down, waiting for the ambulance.

Selupe, fearful of coping without the support of unit staff who have helped him come to terms with his loss, says, “I still feel very, very sad.”

He had been asked to stand in as a hooker.