BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Lucas Miller was a promising NRL youngster with the world at his fingertips. But injury and medical negligence destroyed his burgeoning career and more than a decade on the Australian is still fighting to rebuild his life.
Like many boys in the NSW country town of Young, located 373km west of Sydney, Lucas Miller grew up wanting to play in the NRL. However, unlike many others, Miller possessed a strong rugby league family connection, with his father Craig an assistant coach with the Newcastle Knights.
“I used to come up to Newcastle every school holidays and I’d go to training with my Dad and be around Joey [Andrew Johns] and BK [Ben Kennedy],” he reflects.
“I was sat in the grandstand in 2001 and went around the field when the Knights won the grand final.”
Miller also importantly had something most other boys his age didn’t – talent, athleticism and drive. At 15 he left the Riverina region and moved to Newcastle permanently.
He played for the Knights lower grade teams and represented NSW at Under-17, Under-18 and Under-19 State of Origin level.
A promising forward, Miller was snapped up by heavyweights the Melbourne Storm and was made captain of their Under-20s side in 2008.
The front-rower was in a gun youth side that was stacked with future internationals and State of Origin players, containing the likes of Kevin Proctor, Israel Folau, Will Chambers, Joe Tomane and Gareth Widdop.
He was on his way to NRL stardom.
“In that team was Willie Isa, Ryan Hinchcliffe, Aidan Tolman. It was an unbelievable team,” he says, pictured second from the right at the top.
Coming under the tutelage of Craig Bellamy, Miller was in the Storm’s first-team squad alongside future greats such as Cameron Smith and Billy Slater. Named as 18th man on several occasions, the prop appeared poised to make his NRL debut.
But Melbourne’s salary cap scandal, which saw them stripped of two NRL premierships and decimate the club, and injury saw him depart the Victorian outfit and return to play in the local Newcastle competition. In 2011, at the age of 22, the forward headed overseas to France to play for St Gaudens-Toulouse, in a bid to reignite his career.
But after just 10 games in Elite One, Miller’s dream turned into a nightmare. He tore his ACL and underwent surgery in France to repair his knee, but the operation went horribly, horribly wrong.
“It was in the best sports hospital in France,” Miller explains.
“It wasn’t a dodgy joint at the back of Broken Hill. It was the bee’s knees. So I always thought that I was in the best hands because Dr. Jones spoke English.
“The last thing I said to him before I went under it was like, Doc, look after me. This is my job. I remember it vividly because I had such a bad experience in Melbourne with my other knee.
“The reason I was there in France was to prove that my knee was okay, and then the other knee injury happened.”
While in hospital Miller developed a severe postoperative infection, which, along with the poorly placed ACL graft, resulted in chronic knee problems and prematurely ended his career.
“I was in the hospital for 35 days, I lost 30 kilos,” he says.
“It was hell. I tried to go back into the Newcastle Knights system. They had cleared me to play but the doctor had put the ACL in vertically and I had staff infection all through my knee for over 12 months.”
Miller underwent four more surgeries in a futile bid to retake the field, before finally being forced into early retirement. Thirteen years on the Australian lives a life blighted by constant pain caused by his bungled operation.
“I’m in pain every day, my knee swells by the end of the day,” he admits.
“It balloons. I can’t run without pain. I can’t drive for long periods, like driving is really painful or sitting for a long time. It’s like a never-ending battle of ice and heat.
“I’m only 36 and the knee needs to be replaced because of all this infection and the screws put down in the wrong place and everything that happened.
“But I’ve learned to live with the pain. It’s not great, it’s not fun.”
With his sporting dreams in pieces, Miller decided to sue for medical negligence. During the case former NRL head coach Michael Hagan gave evidence, which was not challenged in court, that the young prop was a player of some ability.
“At the time Lucas was in the junior squads with the Knights he would train with the NRL team,” the ex-Newcastle and Parramatta boss said in his evidence.
“This is when I got to look at his ability, skill-set and temperament. He had a good work ethic.
“He was dedicated, professional and very competent at rugby league. For his age he was meeting all key criteria and was a good team member. Lucas Miller was coachable – which means he responded to feedback to improve his game…. he was probably a mid-range player and his salary would have reflected this.”
After years and years of court battles and litigation, in 2020 Miller won his case and last year the NSW Supreme Court finally awarded him a six-figure amount in damages for lost earnings.
But years on Miller is still waiting and fighting to receive the money he is legally owed by the insurance company MACSF.
“In 2018, we flew over to Paris to settle and it was like a Suits episode. We were just off to a meeting in a hotel next to the Louvre and they just didn’t turn up. We were there to negotiate and they just changed their mind. It cost me a lot of money to go there with, my QC and everything.
“They started to appeal everywhere. And we’ve won every time they’ve tried to appeal. And now it’s just to the point where they’re just being jerks.
“They’ve blamed Covid, the riots, then the Olympics for not paying.
“I think they will eventually pay, but they’re typical insurance companies, they think I’ll give up.”
Miller’s experience has had a massively detrimental impact on not only his physical and financial health, but his mental wellbeing as well. It was only in 2023 that he got back involved with rugby league, the sport that was his lifelong passion, after taking a reserve grade coaching role with Western Suburbs Rosellas in Newcastle.
“It took a while,” he concedes.
“My dad was a coach and rugby league has always been in my blood. I was a halfback in a front-rower’s body with no ability. So I always felt like I knew the game well, but to come back and not have that…
“It took me 10 years to really get over it. I’m still not fully over it.
“But going back and coaching and helping young guys has made me find their passion for the game again. And sort of not be so bitter about what happened to me.
“Now, it’s more how can I help someone, one, follow their dreams, but to make sure they get everything they want out of the game because it’s bloody tough.
“You’re running into a brick wall every minute. It’s a scary sport when you think about what we put our bodies through.”
After being forced into retirement at a young age Miller started work in professional horse racing. After making his mark in that field for nearly a decade, two years ago he joined private health company NIB as a commercial partnerships manager.
“When I was growing up in Young with my mum my goal was to be a famous footballer, famous enough to retire and then be a horse trainer,” he says.
“I didn’t quite get to the famous footballer, so when everything happened I was lucky enough that my dad was close friends with Max Lees, who’s son Kris Lees is a horse trainer.
“I went to the stables when I was a kid before school and after school while I was playing and I always had that passion and I went straight into it after all this happened. I had four or five different jobs while the court case was going on and then I became Kris Lees’ racing manager for the last nine years.
“I built his business up with him and we had a really good run, and got to a point where do I go out on my own or do I try and do something else?
“Horse racing is a tough industry, as well as working 80 hours a week. It takes up a lot of a lot of time. So I went to uni and after I got my MBA I got a job with an NIB as a commercial partnerships manager.
“I got into the corporate world the last year and a half, which is really different from all of that. But I think with everything that I’ve experienced in the past, I didn’t have any common sense when I was trying to be an NRL player, so now I’m doing it with sort of the older head.
“I’m really enjoying it. It’s not the path that I thought I’d be on in my life, but I’m enjoying it in a way.”
Miller has been through the wringer and come out the other side. He faces constant reminders of what he has lost, and his shattered dreams, but he has now come to terms with where his life has led.
“At first I was embarrassed that I didn’t make it in the NRL and I was in there [at the Melbourne Storm].
“And now as I’ve gotten older and reflected on everything that happened, I’m actually really proud that I was part of it. It’s taken that long.
“It really bugged me [at first] but because of everything that I learned from all those guys and Craig [Bellamy] all the teams I was in, the NSW Under-19s and at the Knights. Actually now I realise I gave it a good track and I just had bad luck, but I’m proud of what I did.”
Miller’s story remains a cautionary tale of what can go wrong, and for players to properly plan for life after football.
The NRL can catapult individuals into stardom, but careers at the top level are becoming increasingly short. Few fully understand the sacrifice and hard work players and their families must go through to try and get to the top.
“I’ve had 12 knee operations and tried every avenue to follow my dreams and I didn’t do uni because I was like, I’ve got to make it,” he says.
“So the pitfalls of not doing that. And then having to battle through the last 10 years of my dreams are gone, so what’s next?”
“There’s a lot of there’s a lot of bad people out there. Rugby league is a business.
“You’ve got to think about it as a business and we’re just an asset at the time, and if they are commodity goes down, you just goteto be moved on.
“So you have to be set up for it to happen. You can’t just put all your eggs in one basket.
“You can’t rely on someone’s word, you need to make sure all your ducks are in a row, that you have the right management and the right people looking after insurance.
“My message mainly is if you love the game and you want to work hard then you’ll get what you want.
“Bad luck may come a part of it, but you have to defend yourself and get every dollar out of the game because the game won’t pay you once you’re done.”
