If you are a professional athlete who’s overweight, criticism over your fitness is not necessarily fat-shaming

Manly five-eighth Josh Schuster is the latest in a long line of sportspeople who have copped criticism and downright abuse for not being fit enough. 

The Sea Eagles are closing ranks around their young playmaker as speculation rages about whether he will be shipped off to another club or how long he will spend out of action while he works on getting into game shape. 

His coach, Anthony Seibold, defended the Samoan international on Thursday by saying it was a “collaborative decision” for Schuster to miss a few games to get his lingering thigh injury right and be fit enough to cope with the rigours of the NRL grind. 

Schuster is now in the second week of what Seibold has called a “reconditioning block” with a view to having him ready to return later this month when Manly will be without chief playmaker Daly Cherry-Evans on State of Origin duty. 

Josh Schuster passes in Round 3. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

After spending his first two seasons in the second row, Schuster dropped more than 10kg in the off-season, giving up the chance to represent Samoa in what turned out to be an historic run to the World Cup final  to make the transition into his preferred position from his days as a junior representative prospect. 

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Schuster admitted he was to blame for letting his weight balloon last year as he struggled to stay on the park due to calf and ankle injuries, playing just 13 games. 

Manly allowed a premiership-winning stalwart in Kieran Foran take up a lucrative Titans offer amid behind-the-scenes agitation from Schuser’s agent to create space in the halves alongside Cherry-Evans but he’s managed just three appearances this season.

DCE has been blunt in his recent advice for Schuster, telling him that players who don’t sacrifice or work hard enough don’t last long. 

It’s a similar sentiment to one that NSW legends Brad Fittler and Andrew Johns delivered on their podcast to Anthony Milford last year when the former Origin representative, who had a reputation for being a lazy trainer at the Broncos, was trying to land a deal to rebuild his career at Newcastle. 

“Get fit, mate,” Fittler said. “Get fit and he could make a difference at so many clubs, so many clubs could do with a player like him. He can play off the cuff. He’s just got to get fit.”

Johns added that rugby league “is not a good game when you’re not fit” with Fittler chiming back in that “it’s too hard”. 

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

You can bump up “not a good game” when a player isn’t fit enough to “impossible to play”. League at the professional level is up there with boxing when it comes to sports that combine an elite requirement for aerobic and anaerobic fitness, mixed with brutal contact.

Irrespective of whether a player is on a minimum contract or a massive deal, there is a baseline expectation that they will stick to their ideal playing weight. 

Clubs weigh them on a regular basis to ensure they don’t go off track but the onus needs to be on the player to make the most of the golden opportunity they have to be paid well above the average annual employee salary 

With all the strength and conditioning training, sports science and nutritional advice given to them, professional sportspeople are professional in name only if they can’t look after their body. 

They’re also shooting themselves in the foot because in an athletic pursuit, particularly a physically intense one like rugby league, even the most talented of players can only get to a certain level if they don’t dedicate themselves to being at peak condition. 

And of course there is a gargantuan difference between the kind of constructive criticism Schuster has received from within his own club and externally compared to the downright abuse that he and many other male and female athletes have copped, particularly on social media where “fat shaming” is an all too common insidious practice for faceless cowards hiding behind incognito usernames.

Schuster is listed at 106kg by Manly, which makes him the biggest regular five-eighth in the NRL by a considerable margin – Canberra’s Jack Wighton is next among the specialist No.6 in the competition at 96kg.

He is still very young – he’s only 21 and in no real danger, yet, of becoming one of those cautionary tale players who shine brightly for a few years before their careers burn out without ever realising their full capabilities. 

In a probably apocryphal but too-good-to-debunk story of yesteryear, the late, great original super coach, Jack Gibson, is quoted as saying “the rugby league graveyard is full of players with potential”. 

Seibold is confident Schuster, who was also involved in a scuffle with a lower-grade teammate at training last week, will not only revive his career but thrive in the near future. 

“One of the reasons why we’ve taken Josh Schuster out and done this reconditioning block is we want to get him up and running. It’s a little bit like there’s been a pile-on,” Seibold said in reference to commentary about Schuster at his captain’s run media conference in Brisbane leading into their Magic Round meeting on Friday night with the Broncos.

Josh Schuster of the Sea Eagles makes a break in 2021. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

“We made a collaborative decision to put him in a reconditioning block. We’ll always do the thing that we think is right for the player and I feel as though this opportunity for Josh to physically recondition himself and get his quad right, that’s the right way to go about it.

“I have been checking in on him because I feel as though there’s been a bit of commentary around him at the moment which paints him in a negative light when that’s not the case, internally.

“He’s a 21-year-old guy, who’s a very talented kid who’s right at the start of his career. Our job is to try to mentor him. We’ve got some good people around him.”

Seibold has also poured cold water on speculation that Bulldogs halfback Kyle Flanagan would be making a mid-season switch to join the team with his father Shane on the coaching staff. 

“We can have Josh and Cooper through that Origin period in the halves, then we feel as though we’ve got a really strong halves combination,” he said.