Sydney Roosters captain Boyd Cordner will miss the next three NRL games as the club follows the same concussion recovery plan used on Luke Keary last year.
Like Keary, Cordner has suffered a series of worrying head knocks in close succession and has already missed three games as he recovers from his latest brain injury.
Under expert advice, Keary also missed six weeks in the middle of the 2019 season.
It ruled him out of a State of Origin debut but allowed him to return to the field in some of his best form, and Roosters coach Trent Robinson wants the same outcome for Cordner.
On Wednesday Robinson said the club has taken expert advice to rest the 28-year-old for six weeks with hopes it will allay concussion concerns in the future.
“That’s why we’re taking our time, because we don’t want it to be ongoing,” he said.
“We had the experience of Luke Keary last year and you can see how Luke is playing and training and performing.
“We’ve made a decision to take the six weeks that we took with Luke last year, so that’ll be another couple of weeks out (for Boyd).
“From the expert advice we’ve been getting it feels like that’s the right length so it’ll be another couple of weeks out.”
The NSW and Australia skipper has played only seven games this season after he was rested for the first two, and also missed the World Club Challenge in February.
He is expected to return in round 17 for the grand-final rematch against Canberra, with just four games to play before finals.
If he is fit, Cordner will then play three State of Origin matches in as many weeks in November which will add to his load.
While he couldn’t speak about the medical side of it, Robinson said Cordner was back at training and is in good spirits around the team.
“It’s hard for me to talk about the medical side of it, there’s some things going on there that have to be realigned and it was the same thing (with Keary),” he said
“It takes between four and eight weeks to realign that from all the research from the stuff that we know, so we’re just going to take that time and make sure he’s fully recovered.
“He’s back running, he trained on Sunday, but we want to be sure.
“We want to look after Boyd and make sure he’s ready to go for the rest of the season.”
