{"id":586617,"date":"2025-11-22T10:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T10:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/586617\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T10:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T10:53:11","slug":"ex-catalans-dragons-star-slams-clubs-medical-staff-over-injury-woe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/586617\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Catalans Dragons star slams club’s medical staff over injury woe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Catalans Dragons star Elliott Whitehead has hit out at the way the club handled his career-ending back injury \u2013 insisting he felt their medical staff \u2018weren\u2019t really bothered\u2019 about his troubles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whitehead is back in Australia starting his coaching career with Canberra Raiders, the club with whom he enjoyed immense success as a player in the NRL.<\/p>\n

That is after temporarily returning to Super League for one season to finish his playing career with Catalans, the second time he had played for the Dragons following a move there earlier in his career.<\/p>\n

But Whitehead, speaking to reporters in Australia, has not held back at how he felt he was treated by the Dragons\u2019 medical team.<\/p>\n

His career was cut short after a season-ending back injury that has still left him without the full movement of his toes. He underwent surgery for the problem, but had to remain in France due to regulations that meant if he went back to Australia early, he wouldn\u2019t get paid.<\/p>\n

And incredibly, he has revealed how Catalans staff told him they were unable to get him scanned when he pleaded for a check on the injury after it first happened in May: due to the amount of tourists that were in the Perpignan region.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a little bit more movement in my toes. I can curl them now, I couldn\u2019t use to do that,\u201d he said. \u201cI can lift them up a little bit \u2026 but it\u2019s getting better, slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty disappointed with the medical staff over there at Catalans. I felt like there were times when they weren\u2019t really bothered about me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked them for scans and they kept saying, \u2018Oh, we can\u2019t get you in there\u2019s too many tourists\u2019. And I\u2019m like, \u2018You\u2019re a professional club, what do you mean there\u2019s too many tourists for a scan?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a bit disappointed because I really enjoyed my time at Catalans the time before, but just didn\u2019t enjoy it one bit this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitehead also conceded that whole situation, as well as Catalans\u2019 policy on injuries, left him at peace with the decision to call time on his playing days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard. Being over there on my own, the language barrier, not knowing many people around the area, it took a big hit on me,\u201d Whitehead said. \u201cI won\u2019t lie. It made it worse, because if I could I\u2019d have packed up and left and come back here and probably got treatment from the physios here.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut because of how it works over there, once you get injured Catalans put you on a government insurance where you\u2019re not allowed to leave France or you don\u2019t get paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it helped me come to the realisation that my time as a player had come to an end, which is probably a positive in that aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitehead will help with Canberra\u2019s Jersey Flegg team in 2026, beginning his career as a coach after an illustrious playing career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Catalans Dragons star Elliott Whitehead has hit out at the way the club handled his career-ending back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-586617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115592980376791744","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}