Revealed: How Xavier Willison helped save Deine Mariner’s leg

Brisbane Bronco Billy Walters has revealed how teammate Xavier Willison helped save Deine Mariner’s right leg.

In the Broncos’ Round 9 loss to the Roosters, the outside back came off in the 34th minute after having his thigh strapped with a suspected corky before coming back on the field in the last 15 minutes.

But after the match, the corky proved far worse than imagined with Mariner’s right quad swelling up, causing immense pain before he called the club’s medical staff in the early hours on Sunday.

Following the call, the Broncos’ Chief Medical Officer Dr Matt Hislop performed an ultrasound which revealed the Samoa representative was developing an acute compartment syndrome, resulting in an ambulance being called and Mariner being taken to the Royal Alfred Hospital in Sydney for limb-saving surgery.

The surgery proved to be successful, and the 23-year-old miraculously made his return into the side by Round 18.

But as Walters explained, had it not been for Willison prompting Mariner to call Hislop, it could have been a different outcome.

“It's crazy,” Walters said on SENQ Breakfast.

“At least with my injury, there's a lot more known. I suppose with ACLs happening a lot more often, but with him, it was just the unknown (and) it was pretty scary.

“I know some of the boys were telling me actually, when he first did it, he was in so much pain after the game that he couldn't actually lie down, so he was trying to fall asleep standing up.

“And then eventually his roommate, Xavier Willison, told him to go see the doctor cos that's not normal.

“And then that's when they went to the hospital, and luckily, they did go when they did, or it could have been a lot worse.

“But he's a battler, old Deino, he's pretty tough, so he's come back and it's good to have him back on the team.”

The Broncos will play the Panthers on Thursday night at CommBank Stadium.

SEN will have live commentary of the match from 6pm AEST with NRL Countdown, which then splits into Broncos Radio for SENQ and SEN League for all other stations in NSW and QLD from 7pm (except SENTrack Sydney or Kingaroy & Nananago).

Both calls can be heard on the SEN app.