Sharks centre KL Iro has thanked the club’s medical staff for going against his surgeon’s advice to help him return just in time for the finals after he initially thought that a ruptured pectoral muscle would end his 2025 campaign.
Iro was one of the form centres to start the season with tries in each of his first nine matches despite missing a month with a hamstring strain.
He maintained that form after returning from injury, but his season stalled dramatically in round 14 when he was forced off in the second half of Cronulla’s game against the Warriors after he injured himself while making a tackle.
“When I did it and walked into the sheds, I thought ‘my season is done’,” he told the NewsWire.
“I knew it was torn, so I asked the doctor how long it would take for me to be back. They said 10-12 weeks if you travel well, so I said ‘sweet, I’ll see you in 10 weeks’.
“I looked at my phone straight away and looked at when 10 weeks would get me back, and that’s why I was confident I’d be back this year.”
What made it tougher was that Iro had a stack of friends and family at the ground to support an under-13 team from the Cook Islands that had flown over to play the Kurnell Stingrays as a curtain-raiser.
“All my family was there, so that made it more devastating because I had to act positive for them after the game,” he explained.
“In my head I was thinking I just wanted to go home and lie down by myself.”
Iro suffered the injury on June 7 and was back playing on August 31 for the round 26 win over the Knights, with the strike centre thanking the medical staff for helping him recover so quickly.
“The club actually let me go back home to the Cook Islands to be with family and not think about footy, and I think that was massive for me because when you’re mentally feeling good, the body will follow,” he said.
“That helped me a lot mentally. I was in a sling for the first two weeks, so I couldn’t do anything except clench my fists.
“The physios were massive for me. They helped me push my progress quicker, so I ended up going against the surgeon. The physio said we can accelerate this and make it quicker, so I pushed it pretty hard.”
Iro has put the injury behind him and is getting ready for Friday’s preliminary final in Melbourne after his left edge dominated the Raiders last weekend.
“It was hard when the injury hit because I was just coming back from a hamstring injury, so I’d had a bit of a rollercoaster year,” he said.
“I was feeling really good and confident at the start of the year, so the injuries were really disappointing.
“Thankfully, I’m building my form again at the right time of the year in the finals when every game matters more.”
Originally published as ‘My season is done’: How the Sharks defied doctor’s orders for KL Iro to return from injury