Million Dollar Man: Andrew Fifita's busted knees, induced coma and $100K per game

While the Sharks’ summer signing spree has many tipping them to reclaim their place in the top eight in 2022, the biggest obstacle may be the huge amount of money they’re paying a player who’s broadly accepted to be physically busted.

When Andrew Fifita re-signed with Cronulla on a four-year deal in 2017, he was the best prop going.

He was coming off a massive 2016 season with the Sharks, capped off with a grand final win where he was somewhat controversially overlooked for the Clive Churchill Medal as best on ground.

Then there was his barnstorming performance in Origin 1 of 2017, one of the finest by a prop in the interstate arena’s history, for which he would not be denied man of the match honours.

A few weeks later, Fifita signed on the dotted line with the reigning premiers in a deal that made him one of the best-remunerated forwards in the game.

And why not? He was playing the best footy of his career – indeed, on his day it was some of the best footy in the history of middle forwards – and just days shy of his 28th birthday, he was surely entering his prime years, ready to lead Cronulla into the post-Paul Gallen era with four years of devastating service.

That seemed to be the case for the first couple of years of his fat contract, playing 26 games and running a total of 3543 metres in 2018, then following that up with 21 games and 2416 metres in 2019.

But 2020 saw things turn.

While there were only 20 matches in the COVID-interrupted regular season, with the Sharks managing one more in the finals, Fifita could only get on the field for 12 of them, struggling through the year with a reported chronic knee injury.

During the off-season, Fifita told NRL.com he had blown out to “the heaviest I’ve ever been” at 137 kilograms.

“I didn’t want to jump on the scale and show the boys I was a fat mess,” Fifita said.

So he hit the boxing pads, in the middle of a Riverina heatwave, wearing a garbage bag under his jumper to make the 40-degree days extra unbearable, all while subsisting on a juice diet.

His plan was to get down to 118 kilos, stripping the weight from his frame so he could still succeed in an NRL competition that had considerably fewer chances for a big fella to have a breather compared to when Fifita had been in his 2016-17 pomp.

The end result? John Morris sent Fifita off to play NSW Cup for Newtown.

And even after the coach got the boot after five rounds, Cronulla’s biggest and best (paid) player continued to play park footy with the Jets.

He ended up breaking into the Sharks’ first-grade squad in Round 10 against the Bunnies, then featured five more times before his season finished in terrifying fashion against Newcastle, with Fifita copping a stray knock to the throat that saw him placed in an induced coma.

(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

There were fears he would never play footy again, although the Tongan international put those fears into perspective last October, when he spoke about his ordeal in the hospital.

“They ended up cutting my neck. He said (if they did it) a minute later I would have died,” Fifita told Nine.

“Then they realised they clipped an artery in my neck, and I was bleeding all through my lungs, so I was drowning in my own blood.”

With that being your most recent experience on a footy field, no one would blame you for wanting to hang up your boots.

And if we’re being honest, the suits in the Shire probably had similar thoughts – placing their grand final hero’s long-term health and welfare first, but understandably licking their lips at the prospect of getting salary relief for a bloke who’d suited up 18 times in the past couple of years, and had therefore grossed just under $100,000 per game.

But according to the Sydney Morning Herald, “Fifita was told he would not be entitled to a medical retirement.”

So, if he wants the reported $850,000 he stands to earn from Cronulla this season, he’s got to work for it.

Although, as he discovered last season, he’s only got to work as hard as the part-timers in reserve grade.

That is, unless he wants to go around again in 2023. But short of a stint in the English Super League with twin brother David, logic suggests this is Andrew Fifita’s swan song.

Million Dollar Man series
A look at each club’s million-dollar man – the player broadly acknowledged to be taking up the largest individual chunk of the salary cap (even if they aren’t actually quite grossing seven figures).
» Can Tevita Pangai Jr finally put it all together at the Bulldogs?
» An off year or the beginning of the end for Jason Taumalolo?
» Scorned by Souths, it’s Reynolds to the rescue in Brisbane
» How much blame does Luke Brooks deserve for the Wests Tigers’ finals drought?
» Addin Fonua-Blake took the green but can he stop seeing red?
» Ben Hunt and how a single moment can define an entire career
» Jack Wighton wins awards but can he win a comp?

Best-case scenario
As said above, there are plenty of decent judges who say the Sharks will go gangbusters this season.

But if we’re being honest, a finals finish – rather than a grand final victory – is their ceiling.

It’s not that they’re lacking depth or talent, it’s that they’re lacking combinations and continuity. A new coach, new halves pairings, uncertainty around who is going to play at 13 – it’s not that any of these are season destroying issues, just that they’re not usually a recipe for a title.

Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

But getting back to finals footy is nothing to turn your nose up at and wouldn’t it be fitting for Fifita to finish up in the NRL by leading his teammates to a September footy appearance on the back of a fearless season played off the bench?

That seems to be his place now, his knee issues taking away any hope he has of being a starting prop again. But if he can accept the role of bench forward and commit himself to ripping in for the limited minutes he plays each week, you would hope he can continue to make a difference.

I mean, he played 40 or so minutes and ran for over 100 metres in the All Stars match.

An inspirational season, even spent as a cameo player, that leads to a farewell finals appearance would be an awesome way for Andrew Fifita to say goodbye.

Worst-case scenario
After a 2021 season in which Fifita averaged barely 16 minutes and managed a grand total of only 325 running metres across his six first-grade games, there’s evidence that time and injuries have caught up with one of the best props of the modern era.

Maybe John Morris was right. Maybe Andrew Fifita is just a park footy player these days.

But while the 8972 in attendance each week at Henson Park would never say no to another season of week-in, week-out appearances from a genuine rugby league star like Andrew Fifita, it would be a shame for himself and the Sharks if it all ended with him playing reggies.