He'll be lucky if he's not bed ridden...That's bad. First priority is that he's ok. But secondly he's going to
take time to get his fitness up most likely. Not sure u can train hard with a serious infection and b maybe has a central line in for his antibiotics. Might come back as benchie to ease in.
He came to Broncos training just to watch todaySaid on the radio today that he's not in hospital anymore.
Brisbane winger Corey Oates has no idea when he’ll make his NRL return from staph infection
COREY Oates has been ruled out indefinitely, with the Broncos winger revealing he has no idea when he will play again after being floored by an extremely rare staph infection.
Oates spoke for the first time about the health ordeal that saw him admitted to hospital and later require daily visits from nurses after being placed on an IV drip as he recovered at home.
Just six weeks ago, Oates was an Origin star in supreme form, producing a spectacular AFL-style mark to score Queensland’s only try in their 28-4 loss to NSW in Game One.
Now the 22-year-old is in rugby league limbo.
Oates appeared at Broncos training on Friday as a spectator only, a bandage on his arm covering the site of his IV drip, and hopes he will be medically cleared to return before the finals.
“I’m not bad, I’m still alive,” said Oates, who was a late scratching for the Melbourne clash two weeks ago after complaining of soreness in his hips.
“I didn’t think it would be that serious, but the doctors have said otherwise.
“They said they don’t really know how to treat it.
“I wouldn’t say it’s career-threatening, but I have no idea when I will be back.
“There is no time frame. Fingers crossed I will be back this year ... if I do my rehab properly and don’t rush things, I will hopefully be back before the finals.”
According to doctors, Oates had just a two per cent chance of contracting one of the rarest forms of staph infection.
“They said it could have been a lot worse. If I left it any longer, who knows what could have happened,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say it was life threatening, but they pumped me full of antibiotics.
“If it had got into my blood, things would have been pretty cruel.”
Broncos high-performance manager Jeremy Hickmans admits he was shocked by Oates’ deterioration in the space of 24 hours. Instead of playing against Melbourne, he found himself in a hospital bed.
“I’ve never seen this before in rugby league. It’s a real random case,” Hickmans said.
“It was literally an overnight thing. On the Tuesday, the last thing he said to me was this is the best I’ve felt in ages. The next morning he said to me my hips feel really sore, what’s going on?
“We got some blood tests and by Friday they showed an abnormality so he went straight into hospital.
“We don’t know how long he’s out. It could be three weeks or the rest of the season, which would be worst case. We can’t start training him until his blood tests are clear, so it’s kid gloves with him at the moment.
“Even when he is cleared, we’re not sure how he will he respond and whether there will be any lasting issues within the hip joints.
“The staph infection got into the joints so whether there is any lasting issues, we just don’t know.”