Manly are confident Tom Trbojevic will return before the end of the NRL regular season despite suffering a minor setback on his hamstring injury.
There were fears on Wednesday the star fullback’s 2020 campaign was over as Manly tried to ease him back into running at the start of the week.
But it’s believed the Sea Eagles’ No.1 has not suffered a new injury, and he will instead take a slower path back to the NRL with a return likely between round 14 and 16.
That will take Trbojevic’s time on the sideline to between eight and 10 weeks, more than the six-to-eight initially predicted when he was injured against Canberra.
This week had always shaped as a key week for the NSW State of Origin representative, who was due to undergo more scans and ramp up his training.
The news will come as a massive relief to Manly fans.
Trbojevic is arguably the most influential player in the game, and at the time he went down he’d either scored or set up 11 of the Sea Eagles’ 16 tries to that point.
Last week’s win over Parramatta was Manly’s second victory in their past 10 games without the 23-year-old.
Realistically, if Manly can enter the finals with Trbojevic they will be a serious title threat.
But without him, they have now dropped out of the eight altogether.
On Tuesday, Manly received a boost with Addin Fonua-Blake free to play in North Queensland on Friday after initially being expected to miss out due to his refusal to get a flu vaccination shot.
The Sea Eagles have not revealed if Fonua-Blake received the vaccination or gained a medical exemption, determined to respect the forward’s privacy.