Question: Greg, how painful is it?
Greg Inglis: It was pretty painful over the weekend and when I woke up it was feeling worse. Like Mary said, if I have enough rest I should pull up sweet. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I should be back on the field.
Q: Is it only painful when you play or always?
GI: It's just painful altogether. It's one of those injuries where you can't get back on the paddock straight away. I've got to make every bit of my bone right and that's what the Storm and the medical staff are trying to do.
Q: Was there a specific incident where you injured yourself?
GI: I can't remember. After the first State-of-Origin I came back and played the Panthers game and it took me a whole week to recover from that and like Mary said the doctors had it checked out over the past 24 hours and that's what has shown up. The injury that I have now is pretty much painful all the time.
Q: Did you play with that pain on the weekend or did you aggravate it further during the game?
GI: Before the game I wasn't too bad, I felt pretty good. I think I copped a knock but I don't remember which incident it was. After the game it was pretty sore so I went and saw Mary and she basically told me to ice it and we'll talk about it further on Sunday. So that's what we did and we went and got the scans done.
Q: It's disappointing that you're going to miss Origin?
GI: It's very disappointing that I'm going to miss Origin but I'm happy that my name's even been thrown into the squad. They're eager to get me back up there but I'll try and get myself right. Hopefully I'll have ten years in this business and I don't want to go up there and play and risk missing more time out. Like Mary said, they're probably under a lot of pressure at the moment, they're facing four series losses in a row, and they've got a lot of people up there who want them to win this game. Hopefully I'll be alright for the third State-of-Origin in Melbourne.
Q: There may be people up in Queensland who think you're giving State-of-Origin a miss to get yourself right for Melbourne Storm?
GI: I'm not doing that at all. It's a back injury and one bad knock and I may be out for a long time.
Q: Is it disappointing that Queensland may not see that?
GI: If they do it is disappointing, but they might not realise that I'm also growing as well. That's another factor with all of this that I've been growing in the past six months as well. Melbourne Storm and the team have been trying to take some of the workload off me a bit because I'm still growing.
Q: When do you feel you'll be back playing again?
GI: It's hard to tell at the moment. I'm just taking it day by day, working on my rehabilitation and getting back on the field as soon as possible.
Q: Do you think you'll need to play again for the Storm before playing State-of-Origin again?
GI: I can't tell you that at the moment. The injury has only happened recently and if I pull up alright in two weeks then we'll see what the selectors say after that.
Q: What are you going to do with yourself during your enforced rest?
GI: I'll probably be a bit lost walking around this place. Football is one of the sports I love and I like to be out on the paddock, but it's the kind of injury I need to take time with.
Q: What do you think of the Billy Slater incident?
GI: I don't know anything about that incident, but good luck to Billy. I hope they fight it and he's back with the Storm next week.
Q: What if Billy gets off and he takes your spot at fullback?
GI: That's the last thing on my mind at the moment. If Billy takes over my spot and I come back in the centres, it doesn't bother me. I just want to come back and play football.
Mary Toomey (Storm physiotherapist) comments regarding Greg Inglis' back injury
Question: Have you spoken to the QRL regarding Greg going to Brisbane to be checked out by their medical staff?
Mary Toomey: There's been some discussion about that today. They want Greg to fly up so they can have a look at him, but we have said to them that is probably not our preference. If their medical staff would like to have a look at him we would prefer they flew down here. It's not an ideal situation with his injury that he spends two and a half hours going in both directions from Melbourne to Brisbane in a plane.
Q: What is exactly wrong with Greg?
MT: Greg's had a problem with increasing stiffness in his back for the last few games. He's been ok during the games, but has been pulling up quite sore in his back the next day. In the last couple of weeks that's been extending to include hamstring and calf stiffness. After the Panthers game he took just about the whole week to recover, but was pretty good again by the time he played on the weekend. He pulled up very sore again on Sunday so our doctors decided to get a bone scan and cat scan done to check it and the results of that are he has a chronic stress reaction in one of his low lumbar vertebrae and he's now got an acute fracture through that area as well. He's got a stress fracture of his lumbar spine.
Q: What's the prognosis for how long Greg will be out?
MT: It's really hard to tell. It's an injury where the management is mostly about pain relief. We believe we've got the injury fairly early so the best case scenario is that a couple of weeks makes it a lot better to the point where we can allow him to play again. We had one young player earlier in the year who had the same injury and he took nine weeks to recover. It's an enormously variable time frame. It really is dictated by how much pain the person has.
Q: What do you think of Queensland's insistence that you send Greg to Brisbane to be checked out up there? It's almost a slap in the face?
MT: Yeah, I'll talk to them more about that later. I think they've probably been under a little bit of pressure too.
Q: Have you relayed your feelings on the matter to the Queensland medical staff?
MT: We haven't been able to get in contact with them but we've left a message and we expect that they'll be happy to go with that.
Q: Does Queensland have the right to put their foot down and insist Greg goes up there for a check by their medical team?
MT: We don't believe so, no.
Q: Does it make it more difficult that he is growing as well?
MT: It probably makes him a little more at risk of this type of injury. Greg, to the best of my recall, has grown about six centimetres in the past 12 months. Often what you'll find with an adolescent growing at that rate, who is playing elite sport at the same time, is that their body doesn't quite cope with the stress and strain of the sport and they're more likely to sustain an over use injury, and a stress fracture is an over use injury.
Q: How big are the risks if he came back too early?
MT: The worst case scenario with an injury like this that you end up with chronic back pain and chronic back disability.
Q: Did playing on the weekend worsen the injury?
[ b]MT: I think it probably declared itself a little bit more. The fact the bone was showing some signs of a stress reaction with acute fractures developing through there too shows there's been something brewing there for a while. So, yes, it probably has got a bit worse over the past couple of weeks.
Q: Are there any other models to go on?
MT: It's not an uncommon injury in elite sport. I've looked after, in my time in sport, quite a few footballers from different codes with the same injury. They have, to the best of my knowledge, recovered fully and returned to playing sport, but they do so after a period of rest and rehabilitation.