Recently, the Roosters have been in the news, and not necessarily for the good reasons. First, their enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves reached the 300-game milestone. Next, winger Dominic Young was sent off for the first time this season after taking a high shot on Canterbury’s Blake Taaffe. Finally, they made the embarrassing choice to celebrate Michael Jennings reaching the 300-game mark against the Knights.
The Roosters’ most noteworthy recent story, in my opinion, is about James Tedesco, the team captain and favorite son, who suffered his tenth concussion in his career during the team’s loss to the Bulldogs. It’s worth noting that seven of the ten incidents have happened in the previous three years.
It’s not fun at all, and I’m not sure whether you’ve ever been seriously concussed or knocked out cold during a football game. If you’re lucky, the ammonia salts will allow you to recover quickly after a collision, reposition yourself in the line, and continue playing until the final whistle. If not, it’s game over since your limbs won’t react the way you want them to, the nausea comes hard, and the fog just won’t clear at all.
Take a serious enough hit, and you may not recover completely until long after the game—a game you can hardly recall.
Tedesco is among the game’s greatest players and needs no further validation. Throughout his amazing career, he transformed the fullback position. Along with winning two premierships with the Roosters, a World Cup with Australia, a Harry Sunderland Medal, a Dally M Medal in 2019, and a slew of other individual honors, he has captained his club, his state, and his nation with distinction. He even competed for Italy in the 2013 and 2017 World Cups, representing his Italian ancestry.
