The life-threatening health scares that put Corey Oates’ NRL career in perspective

By the age of 21, the Broncos and one-time Origin winger had already undergone nine operations on injuries sustained from head to toe.

But two scars in particular serve as daily reminders of his own mortality and put his NRL career in perspective. Several others reinforce the tenuous turns professional rugby league can take.

Now 27, Oates is off-contract and facing the most uncertain year of his decade at the top yet.

Regardless of how it all plays out though, those scars bear the unwritten memo Oates will carry throughout it all.

“Take every day as a bonus”.

‘Count your lucky stars’: Half a centimetre in it

Given his familiarity with an operating theatre, Oates introduced himself to the surgeons well before he could talk.

When he was three months old his mum Janette acted quickly to save her son as he was suffering from reflux, a contributor to cot death in infants.

Each time he had milk he would vomit it up and be in severe distress. The family was particularly concerned given Corey’s father Warren almost died from the same condition as a baby.

Baby Oates, living in the bush, was rushed to see his family doctor in the small Central Queensland town of Biloela and diagnosed, then operated on in Rockhampton with what Oates calls now “a nick” to a muscle on his stomach.

“It’s one reason why I do take every day as a bonus,” Oates says.

“Dad’s was worse. They were worried they were going to lose him, but Mum got me to the doctor in time. I was too young to remember of course but I have a scar just above my belly button that everyone calls my second belly button, which was the cut the surgeon made.”

Oates and his wife Tegan have a daughter, Montana, who is three in April, and an 11-week-old son Huxton who have both avoided what can be a genetic condition.

“It is something we have to be aware of because it was passed down from my dad to me,” Oates says.

“Montana didn’t have it and the young fella is going well and there are no signs of it, but it is something they can scan for if there is a worry.”

There were worries aplenty though when Oates suffered a deep wound to his leg in his 150th NRL game against the Tigers in 2020, a dalliance with the Grim Reaper that was too close to comfort.

“When you look at how close it was to cutting my main artery you could say I had a brush with death,” he says of an injury that was suspected initially of being a compound fracture of the femur.

“No one thought about my artery at the time but the next day the surgeon told me the cut missed it by half a centimetre, if that. He said, ‘Count your lucky stars’.

“Because of where I was and with everything going on, he didn’t like my chances of making it if the artery had been sliced. You don’t think about (your mortality) until you find out how close you were.”

Back to basics, then back to Broncos

As Oates talks about his near death experiences it leads to the near termination of his Broncos first grade career in 2021, before he resurrected it with a little help from some friends.

Last year he broke his hand in the pre-season, played five underwhelming NRL games on his return to action and was then dropped.

“I wasn’t playing good footy and I felt like crap,” Oates says.

“I was kicked down to Q Cup with Souths Logan and it didn’t look like I would ever get another game for the first grade team.”

For the former Maroons representative and Broncos supporter from childhood this took some swallowing, but Souths Logan coach Steve Bretherton found the formula to get him firing.

“At first it was pretty shit to be honest but it turned out to be the best thing for me,” Oates admits.

“I could not have asked for a better bloke to play for than Steve Bretherton. He said he didn’t want me to try and win games but just to do what I did when I was one of the game’s best wingers. He said, ‘In my eyes that was because you carry the ball strong, you are safe under the high ball and you make really good decisions in defence. Stop thinking you need to do anything extra’.”

That was all Oates needed to hear. A hot streak of four match-winning Cup games in a row followed, including a trademark, barnstorming try right on full-time to seal a thrilling win over Wynnum.

“All of a sudden I felt like my old self again. I believed I was good enough,” Oates says.

Oates was recalled to the Broncos team, played nine consecutive and solid games and helped Brisbane finish the season optimistic there are better days ahead. The return of 2000 premiership-winner Ben Ikin to the club also found him pressing the right button for Oates to fire his way back into first grade.

“Ben came to me and said, ‘When you get your shot again in first grade, make sure you take it. Make every game your best’. He kept it simple for me and reminded me of what I did well when Wayne [Bennett] coached me,” Oates says.

“I had to be selfish and do what works for me, and people told me it was the best footy and the most consistent I’d played for years. That made me really happy and every week I wanted to do more. I got back to practising catching bombs every day.”

Better by Miles

Oates has scored 98 tries for the Broncos and sits sixth on the all-time list of the club’s leading try scorers. That’s no fluke, but the rangy flyer knows he has a fight on his hands to play in the starting side this season with Selwyn Cobbo, Jordan Pereira, David Mead, Jamayne Isaako and Brenko Lee all in the mix for wing spots in round one.

He will need to be able to trust his body more than ever and says sessions with his brother-in-law Liam Miles have given him the pre-season strength and confidence to be at his best.

“Liam [Miles] is an exercise physiologist and had asked me for years to train with him one-on-one in the off-season to strengthen my quads and other muscles in my hips and core,” Oates says of their sessions in the ‘Better By Miles’ studio.

“I was by myself training virtually every day of the holidays in the gym and I am feeling better now than I have in my whole career and that is because of all the extra stuff I have been doing in the holidays.”

The past two pre-seasons have not been kind to Oates. In 2020 he spent nine days in hospital on a drip after a second staph infection and last year a broken hand cruelled him. Last month he was on a reduced training schedule at Red Hill, but still feeling fresh and confident.

“The modified training is for my hips where I try to not do as much turning, because the first staph infection I had really damaged my hips after I tore my right hip in my 100th NRL game against the Tigers,” he says.

“Ever since it has given me grief so now I am easing back in. The last two years haven’t been great and I haven’t been able to do the work to strengthen the hips up. They have copped a bit of battering but I am coming out the other side of it now.”

That flick pass: ‘I always blamed myself’

Oates is the last Bronco still remaining at the club from the heartbreaking golden point 2015 grand final loss to the Cowboys. Memories of that fateful night still sting. In the final play of normal time Oates came in from his wing to tackle Michael Morgan and allowed Kyle Feldt a saloon passage to the tryline, a play he still gets reminded of.

“There are jokes every now and then at training if a similar play happens, and the same outcome happens,” Oates reflects.

“It’s like, ‘There it is again’, but I try not to let it happen anymore.”

There were plenty of other reasons why the Broncos lost that night and Oates says he never felt as though teammates blamed him.

“I always blamed myself,” he says.

“There’s no way I will watch a replay of that game and whenever the highlights of the end come up, I look away. It is not something I want to relive.

“The thing that sticks out to me is that we haven’t been back since. It has been more than six years. That’s half of my career that has gone. The blokes that have won multiple comps … that’s rare. It doesn’t happen to everyone. Are you going to get another shot at winning one again? That’s the question you ask.”

Benny, the Broncos and the future

Oates has been signing one-year deals with Brisbane ever since the 2018 season, sometimes because he wanted to challenge himself and on other occasions because that is all the Broncos’ salary cap would allow.

Last season he took up a one-year option in his favour for 2022.

“This is a massive year for me. I feel really confident that I can have a great season and get back to the player I was and know I can be,” he says.

If he does, the offers will follow. His old mentor Bennett lining him up for a Dolphins cameo seems a reasonable scenario, though Oates says, “I haven’t heard from Wayne yet (contract-wise) and I don’t know whether I will.

“Out of the blue though, Wayne got in touch with me when everything was tough for me, and that was nice.

“He knew I was struggling and he made me feel good about myself. Wayne said, ‘You know what you can bring and just get back to that and all the things I taught you. Don’t think you have to add stuff’.

“I always look at Wayne as the coach who backed me and what I brought to a team.”

While every off-contract player will be linked to the Dolphins in the coming months, Red Hill has been Oates’ home since signing with the club as a teenager.

“I supported the Broncs since I could walk. There is a photo of me in a Broncos outfit at home when I was four or five,” he says.

“I remember when I was at school. The old man said the Broncos were interested in signing me and it was the happiest moment of my life. The Eels were in for me at the time, but when I heard the Broncos name I knew exactly where I was going.”

Oates has found stability off the field and knows where he is going with his life as a proud father. He does not miss nights out with the lads one bit.

“I always wanted to be a young dad. It is busier, but so much fun,” he grins. “I love mucking around with Montana and being a kid again. She is rough and definitely not a girly girl, but now I have the young fella I might ease off on the tackling.

“There is none of that [party lifestyle]. I don’t miss that at all. My ideal night is having one or two beers at home, playing some pool and listening to country music.”