Twitter has, as it often does, broken some news that it was not yet ready to be made public by a team. In this instance that Gareth Owen was having surgery today.
UPDATE: The latest on this can be found here.
It was noticed that Tommy Isaacs tweeted his best to Gareth Owen who was “going under the knife today”. Confused I checked the press to find if I had missed an injury to Owen, but could find nothing on the subject.
So, in an unusually proactive move for this blog, I got in touch with the Ospreys to find out the score. They gave a very definitive ‘no comment’, and said that people had tweeted things that they shouldn’t. And that was about it.
Which led to an appeal for information. Someone (who has been a reliable Tweeter before) came forward saying he had ‘someone on the inside’ who may be able to help. Further details were sought and chinese whispers have given us something.
I give no guarantee of accuracy (see how this works Western Mail, being honest rather than skipping all this and saying ‘sources say’), but it is claimed that he injured his leg warming up, no contact was made with anyone. More worryingly this was said to my ‘contact’ (that mysterious sounding enough?)
“Fucked. Apparently torn everything there is to tear in his leg!! They can’t even give him a time for when he”ll be back!!!”
Again we stress nothing is confirmed, and we sincerely hope this is not the case. But it doesn’t sound good because at the very least he has undergone surgery and the Ospreys are refusing to comment on it, which is unlikely to be good. He had this to say earlier on Twitter
Is en route to the hospital !! Hopefully ill have a new knee after this !! Not looking forward to the tho !! #hateneedles
It would be a big shame. He is a very talented player and, whilst he may not have progressed as much as we would have liked, this season could well have been his big break with Hook moving on and no one seemingly coming in to replace him.
I hope none of this is true but until the Ospreys make a statement it is not looking good.
UPDATE: The latest tweet from Gareth Owen
Thanks to everyone for their lovely messages all went to plan just chilling at the hospital recovering !! #theneedleswernttobad
Further Update: Not good news – this from the Ospreys website
Gareth Owen could miss the entire 2011/12 campaign after suffering what has been described as a “substantial injury” in training.The 22-year old Maesteg born back, who has 50 appearances for the Ospreys under his belt, underwent surgery this week and faces another operation at a later date.
Head Physio Chris Towers explained:
“Gareth underwent surgery on Thursday after he suffered a knee injury in training, It was a bit of a freak accident resulting in him twisting his knee, sustaining a substantial injury. As a result of this he will, in all likelihood, be out of action for the whole of the 2011/12 season.
“Thursday’s operation was the first part of what will be a two stage surgical procedure to repair the damage and then reconstruct the cruciate ligament. At this stage we are unable to say anything more, but will update on his progress as and when we can.”
Discuss this, and other rugby news, on our new Welsh Rugby Forum
Loading ...