In the last three years, few NRL players have been interrogated more than Josh Schuster.
If it wasn’t his form, it was his fitness, and if it wasn’t his fitness, it was the $800,000 a year he was trousering as one of the NRL’s brightest prospects.
Doubtless he has been paid on the enormous potential he is trying hard to fulfil, as opposed to consistently high levels of performance. But that is the prerogative of an NRL club.
Some would say the scrutiny comes with the territory of being a highly paid professional rugby league player, as long as it’s within reason. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
But maybe some context is needed. For more than three years Schuster has been dealing with the death of his childhood friend right in front of him at Manly training. A companion with whom he was so close that he refused to let go of his hand as he sat with him on the floor of the club’s Narrabeen gym after he suffered a seizure.
With his head bowed and his throat choking with sobs as he gave his evidence, a window into Schuster’s world emerged inside a sterile courtroom during the coronial inquest into the death of former Sea Eagles player Keith Titmuss at a training session in November 2020.
Manly Sea Eagles player Josh Schuster attends the inquest into the death of former player Keith Titmuss.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The court heard Schuster sat on the floor of the dojo with Titmuss, holding his hand even as Manly support staff and paramedics tried to clear the area to render emergency care.
Schuster had been close friends with Titmuss since kindergarten. They’d played junior footy together and, in the words of Schuster, they “wanted to play NRL and for their country [Samoa] together”. It was a dream they were well on the way to achieving.
His best friend died in front of him. It’s time we change the Josh Schuster narrative
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11.02.2024
In the last three years, few NRL players have been interrogated more than Josh Schuster.
If it wasn’t his form, it was his fitness, and if it wasn’t his fitness, it was the $800,000 a year he was trousering as one of the NRL’s brightest prospects.
Doubtless he has been paid on the enormous potential he is trying hard to fulfil, as opposed to consistently high levels of performance. But that is the prerogative of an NRL club.
Some........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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