You can’t keep a good man down. And when it comes to Shute Shield rugby, you definitely can’t keep Henry Clunies-Ross down.
Clunies-Ross, a veteran Sydney Uni winger who has had stints with the Waratahs, Lyon, the Aussie sevens team and NSW Country, will line up for the Students against Gordon in the Shute Shield grand final at Leichhardt Oval on Saturday.
The 28-year-old has been named on the bench but may yet start the game, with Uni still negotiating with the Japanese club of former Wallabies tourist Tom English about his availability.
Just taking the field in any form will be a remarkable feat for Clunies-Ross, who only 13 weeks ago dodged potentially fatal consequences when he ruptured his spleen in a game, and didn’t know he was bleeding internally for many hours afterwards.
But the game will also cap an incredible three-year block for Clunies-Ross, given the spleen scare was his actually his second life-threatening footy injury in that time.
As reported by the Herald at the time, Clunies-Ross picked up a rare and deadly flesh-eating bacteria in his right leg after suffering a cut playing for Uni in 2019. It was a bug that kills one in four people it infects, but after five surgeries and a long rehab, Clunies-Ross fortunately recovered.
Henry Clunies-Ross celebrates a try against Southern Districts.Credit:Karen Watson
“Both my girlfriend and parents are really supportive, and they know I have a few screws loose up top and will keep going back,” Clunies-Ross said.
“But after the spleen, everyone else was ‘OK, surely you’re hanging them up mate’. But yeah, I could never give it up.”
The latest brush with death for Clunies-Ross began when he copped a knock in his side playing against Eastwood in early June. He was a bit winded but otherwise thought nothing of it, and suited up for the Uni players’ ball that night with girlfriend Jess.
“I thought I had a bad stitch, but some of the boys were telling me to just have a few more beers and the pain will go away,” Clunies-Ross said.
Clunies-Ross debuted for Sydney Uni in 2014.Credit:Karen Watson
“Charlotte Caslick was there and she was saying, ‘when I have a stitch I push really hard on it and it goes away’. I started pushing on what I didn’t know then was a ruptured spleen.”
Clunies-Ross lay down on a couch and someone pointed out he was going a bit white.
How the Herald repoirted Clunies-Ross injury in 2019.
“Luckily I am a bit older and a bit smarter now so I eventually took myself to emergency at about midnight,” he said.
Ultrasounds and CT scans discovered Clunies-Ross had a tear in his spleen, and was bleeding into his abdomen. A surgeon was rushed to the Prince of Wales hospital to repair the spleen, and he was lucky to not require a splenectomy.
So what would have happened if you’d doubled down on the beers-and-pushing it method?
“They said it can be really, really serious. It can be fatal, if you don’t go to hospital pretty quickly, because you can just bleed out,” he said.
Clunies-Ross was told his footy season was over, but he spent a good chunk of his week in hospital researching medical papers, trying to find evidence of athletes coming back sooner.
“I found a couple of examples of ice hockey players who came back after six weeks, and found some other random sports and medical journals that showed it can be done,” he said.
He got the green light from his surgeon to come back after 12 weeks, and after forgiving a very apologetic Caslick, Clunies-Ross came off the bench for Uni’s strong reserve grade team last week. He survived a few nervous whacks and was called back to the first grade squad for the decider.
It will come as no shock to learn Clunies-Ross and grand finals have a spotty injury history, too.
He had his appendix removed two days before a colts grand final in 2013, and only managed the last few minutes in the Students’ Shute Shield win in 2018, having torn his hamstring a few weeks before.
When they won again in 2019, Clunies-Ross was dealing with his serious leg injury.
But victory this year would taste extra sweet.
“It has been a really weird journey to get here, and a premiership would mean a lot,” he said.
“I genuinely couldn’t explain it. It would mean the absolute world to me.”
Watch Sydney University v Gordon in the 2022 Shute Shield Grand Final with all the action streaming ad-free on Stan Sport and live on 9GEM (NSW) on Saturday from 3pm AEST.
Grand Final Day Schedule, Leichhardt Oval
Firsts Colts: Easts v Manly, 10.45am.
Second Grade: Sydney Uni v Easts, 12.45pm
First Grade: Gordon v Sydney Uni, 3.10pm
