Broncos star’s frank admission over ‘deserved’ criticism

The Origin dumping kicked off a rocky few years for Oates that included a request to play second row in 2018 along with a horror leg injury in the wooden spoon season under former coach Anthony Seibold.

Oates lucky to be alive after freak injury

The 2021 season also saw him on the outer of the Broncos, playing only 14 games for four tries. However, a significant resurgence in form over the last two seasons has meant Oates is now one of the first players picked in Kevin Walters’ side. 

“I feel pretty proud of myself to get this far, a few years ago I guess everyone was writing me off, and (I) probably deserved it,” he told media before his 200th match.

“I’m just happy that I turned things around to be where I am now again and playing consistent footy.”

Oates admitted some “hard truths” from his family helped get him back on track when attempting to overcome consistent leg and knee injuries.

“I wish I listened, the older blokes when I was young (would say) you need to look after your body or it’ll come back to bite you, it did, and I still didn’t listen to people, I just thought I could still do everything I could when I was younger but I didn’t realise my body was sort of changing up at the time,” he explained.

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“I hadn’t done all the hard work, hadn’t looked after it well even though I thought I did.

“Now doing all the stuff I do now, people say one per cent, but I think it’s a bit more than that, people take one per cent literally sometimes but it’s just the 10, 20 per cent extras on what I was doing … it’s just looking after your injuries … and to be honest it’s been my knees and my legs for me.

“I was lucky I had some family that didn’t get up me at the time, (and) gave me some hard truths.”

Cleary set to return

Oates also confessed that his career could have taken a completely different path at 15 when he “almost went to Parra”.

“It was never going to happen, my old man was a Parra supporter back in the day so he said, ‘Look, I’d love for you to go but I know where you heart’s at’.”

The Broncos winger was speaking during one of the designated media days the RLPA has allowed for players.

Under the current action over the CBA dispute between the RLPA and NRL, media is only permitted to speak to players from Monday to Wednesday each week — Monday to Tuesday if there is an Origin match.

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Oates said he hopes there’s a resolution to the pay war soon. 

“We didn’t want it to get to this but like we all say, we’ve never been more united as a group, all the players and the past players on the board of the RLPA are all sticking together,” he said.

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“We’re tight group and we’re all one so they know what they’re doing, this isn’t what we wanted to do and we all just want it resolved soon.”

The Queensland representative added the players have trust in the RLPA, after chief executive officer Clint Newton was questioned on Triple M whether he was the right man for the job.

“We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t trust them, as a group we have full trust in the delegates and the board of the RLPA. If you ask everyone, we’d love to get it resolved sooner rather than later,” Oates added.

The Broncos will play the Bulldogs on Saturday at Belmore Oval.

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