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At his lowest point this year, Ronald Volkman had given up on ever playing footy again.

Immobilised with pain from the shoulder and hip surgery that cost him his one-year NRL contract with St George Illawarra, he was more than $100,000 out of pocket and couldn’t bring himself to watch rugby league.

He even stopped responding to text messages from his closest mates – something he deeply regrets now.

Worse still, at just 22, the prodigiously talented playmaker felt used up and spat out by the rugby league machine.

“I was in so much pain – mainly from my hip – and the support that I thought I’d get during that transition, I didn’t get,” he says now. “I was like, ‘What the hell?’.

“I felt like it wasn’t a priority in terms of me finding rehab, and it was playing on my head. Like, do people really want to help me?”

It had been a savage and swift fall for Volkman.

Just months before that season-ending surgery, he was a fan favourite at the Warriors, was being taught the ropes by Shaun Johnson and, seemingly, had the world at his feet.

“I was just grateful,” he says now. “I didn’t even care who was in front of me when I debuted – I was just going into the game to enjoy it.

“And to play with SJ – I swear I’m just lucky, bro – I can’t believe I shared the field with him.”

Volkman loved it across the ditch, but was battling Te Maire Martin, Luke Metcalf and Chanel Harris-Tavita to partner Johnson in the halves.

In December, he was granted an early release to join the Dragons for the 2024 season, and even trained with St George Illawarra in January, before his shoulder became an issue.

Two screws from a previous surgery had come loose and he needed a complete reconstruction, including a bone graft from his hip to his shoulder.

The Warriors had already released Volkman, but his Dragons contract hadn’t been formally registered. When the Dragons realised the full extent of his shoulder injury, the club pulled out of the deal.

Volkman was left in the wilderness.

“The past six months has been hard, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, to be honest,” he says now, sitting at a plastic table inside Final Round Gym at Hoxton Park in south west Sydney.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was all over the shop. I didn’t know what I was going to do in terms of footy.

“How could you love the sport so much, and then, within a matter of weeks, with one surgery, you’re not sure whether you’re gonna be playing again?

“You can easily say I was fully checked out.

“In terms of coming back to footy, I wasn’t thinking about it at all. It was definitely something that I didn’t want to do anymore.”

He hasn’t worked since, and has moved back home with his parents, two brothers and five sisters as he attempts to piece his career back together.

He thinks for a second when asked how much money the surgery and contract drama cost him this year.

“Quite a bit,” he says. “A full year’s worth. I was grateful for the opportunity, but it was taken away.

The Warriors paid for the operation, but it was during his recovery that Volkman felt used.

“I don’t really read into the media, but it was going back and forth – like who was at fault,” he says. “I just felt like I was being played a little bit.

“It makes you think you’re just another number.

“But, at the end of the day, clubs are a business and they’re gonna do what’s best for them, so I can’t really fault it.

“But for me, it’s more about humanity, I guess.

“I’m a human being, you know what I mean?”

Volkman cringes when he thinks about the person he became over those few months.

“I burned a lot of bridges,” he says. “I didn’t respond to a lot of the boys who reached out.

“If I had my time back, I would respond to my mates. I’ve always been a genuine person and I love having people around me.

“So, all my mates who took a moment out of their day to see how I was going, and I didn’t respond … it’s something I regret. Like, heavily regret.

“Being at that all time low … I don’t ever want to be that person again.”

Volkman can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. He wants to play again and has been training with boxing coach Huss El-Achrafi at Final Round Gym since May.

It’s the same place Josh Aloiai and Jason Saab do plenty of boxing and conditioning work, and Volkman has dropped 10kg.

“I’m hoping to get a gig somewhere by pre-season time,” he says. “It was only last year that I was playing NRL, so I’m not that far off.

“And if I have to start from the bottom, I’ll start from the bottom.

“I’m working on my craft every day, still treating it as my full-time job – running, passing, kicking.

“I’ve got a lot of time on my hands to do that, I guess.”