Broncos' fans pay attention: Darren Lockyer is not dead.

He is only injured.

Badly injured, yes, but he will live to rasp through another season.

Seriously, to hear some commentators and sports reporters tell it, the Brisbane playmaker may as well have died when he injured his knee – and they have done nothing but dine out on the fact he played on, despite the “gut wrenching pain”, until just before full time.

Two thumbs-up, Dazza, you have done us proud, but it’s not as if he has gone to that big playing field in the sky.

Honestly – he will return.

And if the fate of the Broncos rely on just one player, then they deserve to lose.

Seriously. If the team can’t get it together without their “inspirational skipper” then they don’t deserve to play with the big boys.

There is no I in team people, which, if I have interpreted that particular cliché correctly, means that one man a team does not make.

Which should mean that the premiers can carry on just fine with Lockyer on the sidelines.

It’s not as if they are the only team ever to lose their captain for a season.
Do the names Joey Johns and Nathan Buckley ring any bells?

But I will agree with one point. With all the extra representative games these boys are playing, it’s no wonder they are falling apart midway through the season.

When you are taking hits during the weekends, then at training and then you are forced to throw in some weekly games in there, with even more training – well the laws of averages probably point at an increase in injury.

I can’t be sure – after all I am a journalist and therefore allergic to numbers – but even my flawed logic can recognise the increased risk increased games are putting on players.

If you also take into account any international games the boys are playing – both before and after the usual season, then that is a hell of a lot of torture you are putting your poor tired body through for a very long time with not a lot of space for rest in between.

Now my idea, is to give some of the younger, not quite so crucial players a go.

I know that representing your state, or country is an honour, blah, blah, blah – but is it worth the cost to your health?And if all those young bucks had a chance, then don’t still get to enjoy that honour and the chance to dine out on their “heroic” efforts for decades to come anyway?

But what do I know?

I have never played representative football and are unlikely to ever play representative football and maybe if I did I’d feel differently.

But from my point of view, I think that football players put their bodies through enough agony already.

I mean I’m sure in retirement the one thing they look forward to more than anything – at least in the early days – is waking up without feeling like they have been hit by a truck.

And if the premiership is really the holy grail they are all meant to be striving for, surely that should be one of the biggest considerations for the players.

But then again at the end of the day, premierships, the State of Origin trophy and even the World Cup are only ornaments.

Sure they bring with them a certain amount of bragging rights, but shouldn’t the players come first?