Brave but foolish

Benn Robinson has opted against having the ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee repaired in a desperate bid to return in time for the World Cup.

Could cause him a lot of trouble in the future.

Lordy.

Much as we need him I would rather he heals properly. Heck there's another RWC in 4 years and he'll stil just be 30'ish... just coming into prime as a prop!!!

Besides, we will have the Al Baxter, Rodzilla, Dunnings etc as backup props...

Plus its not like you need props. Your only playing Ireland who aren't in great shakes prop wise and you'll beat Italy without a scrum

.....and nothing would please me more than to see Dunning make the World Cup. One of my favourite Australian players of all time that.

Just mind he doesn't do a drop goal to beat you guys!!

.....

As someone whose both knees are shot (fortunately not the interior cruciate ligaments) I can tell you that´s not advisable. Knees are funny old things much like the back. You don´t really take any notice of them until they start playing up and then you really start wishing they never existed.

You can´t fault his ticker but he´s doing no favours for the reputation of front row forwards when it comes to the grey matter. Sort the knee out now would be my advice because he runs the serious risk of playing when he shouldn´t and doing even further damage. Of course I don´t know the medical situation and the exact nature of the injury but to me it sounds foolhardy in the extreme.

I'm not a knee expert, altho have had my knee rebuilt twice. If it's ligament damage and BR can build up the muscles around the knee to a sufficient degree that surgery is not immediately required, then maybe he's not being so crazy? It might be possible that he can schedule the surgery for a more propitious time without doing too much further damage. I have to believe that he's been well advised medically

I hope he has been well advised medically. If so, great.

I think he's a great player and would love to watch him at the RWC, but he has to think of his long term future as well.

If it is truly a ruptured ACL, then surgery is really the only option. There is no realistic way he could be ready for the RWC if he had it now without risking significant damage in the future. But waiting doesn't gain him anything either unless there is some other underlying injury or inflamation which needs to heal. That would be the only reason to delay. The sooner the procedure, the sooner the rehab starts and the stronger he will be for next season. I would be pretty confident he is getting good advice.

Robbie Deans comments about it:

'Robbo isn't going to proceed with his operation, his knee is remarkably stable for an ACL injury...so he's opted to give it a go and attempt to play without an ACL,' Deans said.

'A typical ACL injury involves medial ligament damage as well, his didn't and he's got good stability.

'There's a little bit of laxity as a result of the fact he doesn't have an ACL ligament, but it's not significant, it's even consistent with some (people) post-operation.

'To put it in perspective, it is a low percentage success rate if we base it on history, so I wouldn't be jumping through hoops just yet, but he's opted to give it a go.

'I understand there's one player who's played a Test match without an ACL, but he played in the midfield and it wasn't a great experience.

'But the midfield's distinct from up front, I mean Robbo might just have to park his sidestep for a while.'

Reminds me of the day when one of our props hirpled his way onto the pitch. Another of our guys looked at him and said "I thought your knee was medically unstable" [or words to that effect] to which he replied "Aye, but I'm going in for an op next week so I might as well totally knacker it as they will be fixing it anyway".
The moral? Props don't have brains (or functioning knees).
I hope he knows what he is doing but if it was a really serious injury, I would like to think his coach would overrule any insane thoughts that he may have about playing.
To be controversial, I also hope that he doesn't start the WC and then break down in the first game and the Ausies are then allowed to bring in a fully fit player. If this happens, there is no penalty to Aus for taking a long punt on an injured player and they can afford to be gung-ho.