NRL Physio, aka Brien Seeney, has lifted the lid on just what NRL clubs think of him—and it isn’t always complimentary.
In a wide-ranging chat on the Inside Ball podcast with Kevin Walters, Seeney revealed the lengths some clubs go to in order to let him know their displeasure with his social media analyses of player injuries and estimated recovery timelines which have almost 250,000 followers on Instagram and X.
“I understand from a club’s perspective,” Seeney said, drawing upon 16 years of experience as a qualified sports physiotherapist.
“You have the private side where it’s about private medical information, but it’s also the competitive advantage, you don’t want another team to know that someone is dealing with a rib injury or a shoulder if you can hide that.”
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“If I was a physio at a club I would not release any information, I’d say ‘shoulder injury, 3-6 weeks’ and leave it at that, which is pretty close to what they do,” he added.
Seeney went on to reveal he’s had more than his share of run-ins with NRL club officials and medical staff over the years that NRL Physio has been active.
“In terms of the 17 NRL clubs, there have been 14 or 15 that have let me know very directly how much they don’t like what I do,” he chuckled.
“It’s brutal.”
Which club hates NRL Physio the most?
Asked if there was one club that was particularly sensitive, Seeney agreed there was.
“I’d say the Storm across the years from media managers and medical staff,” he said triggering widespread laughter in the studio.
“The Bronx as well, they’re not my biggest fans at times,” Seeney added, before stressing he never ‘breaks’ private injury details.
“If someone feeds me information, and it happens every now and then, I’m a physio and I’m held to standards where I cannot just release private medical information,” he explained.
“If I get stuff like someone’s scans I can’t do anything with that, any information that I post is publicly available or it’s information that has already been cleared.”
Seeney then recounted a story involving Brisbane Broncos centre Kotoni Staggs who was returning from an ACL injury and had tweaked his hamstring which further delayed his recovery.
The hamstring issue had been confirmed at the time by Staggs’ then coach Kevin Walters, rating a small mention in a newspaper article which Seeney had seen and then posted about.
However it quickly became clear not everyone knew Staggs’ hamstring troubles had already been made public.
Seeney received a professionally-worded response from someone within the Broncos rebuking him for sharing the information, while two more anonymous replies also arrived that were far less diplomatic.
“They abused the living hell out of me!” Seeney recalled.
Seeney puts such reactions down to a misunderstanding from clubs of what he’s trying to do.
“I’m not angling for a job in the NRL… I don’t need (clubs) to accept me or be friendly, but you don’t need to abuse me either,” he said.
“A lot of clubs seem to think I’m trying to undermine them, but I am literally just trying to educate fans.”