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'You haven't moved your legs yet' - Rob Horne opens up on his life-changing injury
It has been just over three months since Northampton Saints centre Rob Horne suffered a life-changing injury against Leicester Tigers.
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The Australian international centre was forced to retire from rugby after sustaining the career ending injury playing in his side’s victory over Tigers at Welford Road on April 14th.
The 28-year-old opened up for the first time about the incident on Saints TV, going into particular detail about the moment he realised that his injury was serious:
“I was pretty adamant, ‘get off me, let me get up, I’m fine’, I pretty much said ‘I’m pretty embarrassed here, I don’t need any help’. Then when I was telling [forwards coach] Phil Dowson, who was with me at the time, he was saying ‘it’s okay, don’t worry, just stay down’ and I said ‘no, I need to get up, my family are here, I don’t want to show that I’m hurt’.”
Horne commented on how he rarely takes the advice of the medical staff in most games. However, it quickly became clear that this was not the sort of injury that the Northampton centre could simply walk off:
“And then Matt Lee, who was securing my head and neck, said ‘Rob, you haven’t moved your legs yet’ and that’s when I went, ‘I haven’t’ and I was just kicking and kicking and kicking and I got my right leg moving. And then from there I thought ‘okay maybe I should listen to the medicos, probably for the first time in my career.”
Rob Horne injuring his arm….#LEIvNOR pic.twitter.com/YS3y0a7ajL
— Ian Price (@goatteeboy) April 15, 2018
The collision resulted in Horne suffering from an avulsion of his brachial plexus. This left him paralysed in his right arm and he is also suffering from chronic pain. The Wallaby star had only recently moved to England after having played 34 tests for the men in gold. It appeared that he was destined for a successful spell in Northampton after enjoying several man of the match performances for the Saints. Horne pulled on the Black, Green and Gold jersey 21 times last season – scoring eight tries as a Saint and being named the club’s player of the season in the process.
“Everyone at the club has gone above and beyond to support me and my family through an incredibly difficult time,” he said.
It appears that there are still many raw emotions in this interview that Saints TV filmed with him this week.
Round six of the Gallagher Premiership will see Northampton take on the Tigers at Twickenham in aid of the former Saint Rob Horne. This will be the first time the two rivals have met at Twickenham since the 2013 Premiership Final. The Rugby Football Union approached Saints to host a home match at Twickenham earlier this summer so they could test their new East Stand development ahead of the 2018 Quilter Internationals.
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Rob Horne will be returning to the UK to attend the fixture in October and deliver the match ball after moving home to Australia with his family last week.
When asked about life after rugby, it was evident that difficult decisions had been made over the past few months. “It’s a really difficult decision because we’ve certainly made our home here in Northampton and we’re part of the community. Our youngest was eight weeks when we arrived and now he’s almost one, so he’s spent pretty much his whole life here. Northampton is always going to be a part of us but the decision came that it was probably time to head back,” he said.
Comments on RugbyPass
late hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
4 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
24 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
24 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
24 Go to comments