Cronulla’s affected person strategy to Nicho Hynes’ damage paid off handsomely, with the celebrity halfback producing the very best efficiency by any participant this season in his aspect’s 40-8 win over the Dragons.
The reigning Dally M Medal winner was determined to get again on the paddock from his calf damage as quickly as attainable, however Cronulla’s medical employees took no probabilities to make sure there was no threat of him aggravating the pressure.
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Hynes first suffered the damage earlier than pre-season after which did it once more the day earlier than a scrimmage with the Roosters, with some reviews suggesting he may miss the opening two months of the season.
Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon mentioned it was tempting to carry him again early, however he held his nerve regardless of a shaky begin to the season, with Hynes displaying no rust in a blinding show that has the remainder of the competitors on discover.
Hynes completed with a whopping seven line-break assists, 4 strive assists and 4 offloads as he was lastly in a position to unleash all of the pent-up expertise that he wasn’t in a position to showcase within the opening rounds.
“I would have been a punish to deal with. I feel sorry for the performance staff because I was trying to push them and push them,” he mentioned after selecting aside St George Illawarra’s defence with ease.
“I was pushing for round 1 and round 2, and they were like ‘we can’t risk it’. It could be an extended time off the field if we pushed it.
“Once I got the plan to be back for this round, I was like, OK, I don’t want to risk it.
“It’s been a slow process because the tear was in a weird spot near the tendon, and if you go too quickly on it, it could go very fast.
“We just had to be careful of the kilometres we were doing each day at training and put a good plan in place to make sure I could get to game day.
“I haven’t done a heap with the team, but I did enough so I could put in a performance like that.
“The second half was just the standard we want to play at each week.”
The Sharks are instantly premiership contenders with Hynes again within the aspect, however Fitzgibbon needed to pay tribute to Braydon Trindall, who stuffed in at halfback within the first three video games that allowed Hynes to totally recuperate.
“We trusted that he was going to get his job done like he did, so I wasn’t sitting there thinking that we didn’t have a replacement,” Fitzgibbon mentioned.
“I know what Braydon is capable of, so I was comfortable backing him to get the job done.
“With respect to Nicho’s injury, while it wasn’t a significant one, the only thing you can do is get it wrong (by bringing him back early). To flinch and throw him back a week early, if it doesn’t work out, then that’s on me.
“The medical staff were really helpful for me in making those decisions.”
If that is what Hynes can do in his first sport again then the remainder of the league ought to be nervous, though the halfback is totally conscious that his rivals can have plans in place to cease him from ripping them aside like he did all through 2022.
“They’ll come and they’ll be doing their homework and coming after me and trying to put things in place to limit my opportunities,” he mentioned.
“But if you want to be a premier player in this competition, you have to react in the moment and come up with different things if they’re putting pressure on me and whatnot.
“There are some players around me who can take some pressure off me too, and they’re working extremely hard to be in the game and stay in the game and have all options alive.
“I might be a marked player, but we have strike all over the field to put things in place to make sure we‘re ready to go.”
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
