Dragons coach Anthony Griffin has declared Jack Bird a sure starter for his facet’s season opener because the Red V get able to welcome again 12 of their stars for subsequent week’s Charity Shield towards South Sydney.
Bird went down with a knee damage earlier this month and underwent minor surgical procedure to wash up his meniscus, however Griffin says the setback isn’t as unhealthy as first feared with the utility unlikely to overlook any NRL motion after a wretched few years.
A primary spherical bye means Bird has even longer to get well, with the Dragons not scheduled to play till the ultimate recreation of the second week once they host the Titans.
Teddy-like star that ‘makes you watch’ as St Helens arrive in Aus with ‘point to prove’: Three Big Hits
“He’ll be ready for our round 1,” Griffin stated.
“He obviously won’t play next week against Souths, but it was a minor cleanup on his meniscus so he’ll be ready for the first NRL game.”
It’s an enormous enhance for a Dragons facet that can welcome again a dozen gamers subsequent week after they had been no match for St Helens of their first pre-season problem match on Saturday night time.
The 30-18 loss flattered the hosts who had been lacking a stack of expertise throughout the park, however they need to have nearly everybody again subsequent week aside from Bird and Jack de Belin, who’s coping with a calf criticism.
“He hasn’t got a tear,” Griffin revealed.
“It’s just a little bit weak on him at the moment so we’ll just treat it with a lot of caution. If we were in season and it was an important game then he’d play, but at this time of year we won’t risk him.”
In additional good news, Jayden Sullivan is ready to play subsequent week after struggling a hamstring damage at coaching a couple of weeks in the past, with the younger playmaker to companion skipper Ben Hunt within the halves.
Their creativity and a few further area created by the returning forwards ought to present extra alternatives for strike centres Zac Lomax and Moses Suli who managed simply 4 runs between them on Saturday night time.
The pair solely performed the primary half with Lomax starved of any ball, restricted to only one run which ended up being a strive when he backed up a Ben Murdoch-Masila break.
The largest shock was seeing Lomax on the left and Suli on the proper, and Griffin says that the experiment could proceed into the season with the veteran coach eager to see them get early ball subsequent week.
“Zac finished the year on the left last year, and they can both play either side so we wanted to have a look at that in the first half,” he stated.
“We knew that they were only going to play half a game, and I thought they were both strong. We’ll see how it goes.
“I thought it was hard for both of them with our halves not having that extra bit of time.
“It was hard to execute when we needed to, and we probably just needed to give them some earlier ball, particularly on last play a few times. I thought they both did a really good job.”
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
