Brent Tate has had a wretched time with injuries and feels that he owes the Warriors a good season, writes Michael Brown.
It seems time is a great healer not only for the body but also the mind.
Brent Tate was a crushed man last March. He had sustained his second serious knee injury in just over two years and it hurt. It hurt everywhere, especially psychologically.
He thought about quitting.
He reportedly battled with depression. And he certainly struggled with the frustration and monotony of rehabilitation.
Former Warriors skipper Steve Price, also Tate's brother-in-law, summed it up best.
"He's very upset," Price said soon after Tate ruptured knee ligaments playing against Brisbane. "He's been through it before and he knows what he has to go through again. It nearly destroyed him last time so it's going to be tough."
Sitting in the sunshine after Warriors pre-season training last week, Tate didn't appear destroyed.
"It wasn't too bad, I don't think," he offers. "No matter how hard things get, there's always someone worse off than you. That's what my mum keeps telling me, anyway."
His mum has always offered him good advice. But Tate must rank as one of the unluckiest players of his generation.
In 2003 he sustained a career-threatening neck injury and the specially-designed brace he wears when he plays is a reminder how close he came to giving the game away before even starting. In 2005 he reinjured the neck.
In 2006 his season ended prematurely when he badly injured his left knee playing for Queensland. He played 24 games for the Warriors in 2008 but it wasn't until the second half of the season that he showed the sort of form the Warriors paid top dollar for.
He then missed the World Cup final with a hip injury. And then he injured his right knee. The scars from his knees stand out in the Auckland sunshine.
"The two knees have been hard to swallow," he admits. "You go through the stages, 'why me?'. It's all pretty sh*t.
"Watching the boys go out to train and then on gameday, it's all hard. You never feel part of it, no matter what people say or how much they try to include you. There's nothing like being part of the team.
"It's tough and you struggle to deal with it, but you do. You have to. You have to pick yourself off the ground. The thing that got me through was the fact that, no matter what I did, I wouldn't be back playing [in 2009].
"That made it easier to come to grips with it. You just get on and do what you have to do and that was doing my rehab as good as I could."
That meant countless hours on the treadmill or exercise bike as his team-mates strolled out for another training session.
He clocked up literally thousands of kilometres but it wasn't the Tour de France he was training for. The 27-year-old is best with a rugby league ball in his hands.
Tate finally rejoined real training in November when the Warriors began preparations for the 2010 NRL season. It didn't last long. He strained a quad muscle, a common injury for athletes recovering from knee reconstructions.
"I spent most of the pre-season in rehab as well," he says, "so to say I am cooked on rehab is an understatement. I'm itching to get into it.
"When I have trained, it has felt good. As a footy player, you just want to play and train. Not rehab. When you get the chance to go out there and train again, you feel normal again. You're where you're meant to be and doing what you're meant to do."
Tate was meant to be a player who could make a difference to a club that had been struggling. His signing was met with mixed reviews, with some saying the Warriors should have spent the reported $400,000 on a quality half. Finding them, though, is easier said than done, especially for the Warriors.
Regardless, Tate was excellent in the second half of 2008, when Ivan Cleary's side went on a terrific late-season run that was halted only one game short of the grand final.
Many have pored over what went wrong in 2009, when a side tipped for the title lurched to 14th. High on that list should be the loss of Tate.
In the moment he wrecked his knee, the Warriors lost their backline organiser and a player whose competitive spark ignites others. He's also a player who can make the break or use his pace to chase down an attacker.
Needless to say, Tate feels he owes the club a good year.
He's entering the final season of his three-year contract and the Warriors have really got only six months of good service.
Tate knows better than to look too far ahead. He's done that only for the game to remind him how dangerous this can be.
"I would be lying if I said I didn't think I owed them," Tate says.
"But it's not something I can afford to think about. I need to be in the best shape physically and mentally for round one. If I can do that, I'm doing the job they brought me here for.
"I haven't thought about my contract. That's just another added pressure. I put more pressure on myself than anyone, anyway. I haven't thought about rep footy. I just don't want to look too far ahead. I have seen all the highs and lows of the game and, I know it's an old cliche, I want to concentrate on one week at a time."
It's a philosophy his team-mates would do well to follow. They believed their own hype last season and got too far ahead of themselves.
They start 2010 afresh. They have a new captain, new halves combination and myriad changes in the back office. They also have a new, old Brent Tate.
