Hayne's NRL fitness no concern for Titans

Feb 28, 2017 - 7:46 AM Gold Coast coach Neil Henry expects Jarryd Hayne to have no problems recovering from a knee injury to play in the Titans' NRL season opener against the Sydney Roosters.

Hayne hasn't played since injuring his knee on the first day of the Auckland Nines, subsequently ruled out of the NRL All Stars match and all of the Titans' trials.

However, he has been back in full training this week, and coach Neil Henry expects the two-time Dally M Medallist to have no issue lining up on Saturday night.

"He didn't pull up with any issues the other day and we did contact training," Henry said.

"We'll do a bit tomorrow so I don't expect him not to play, that's for sure. Hopefully, he should be right."

Hayne is one of a number of injury concerns heading into game one for the Titans.

Second-rower Kevin Proctor and centre Konrad Hurrell have been named, after also missing the Titans' trials with knee injuries.

But Henry was confident their lack of preparation wouldn't be an issue come Saturday at CBus Super Stadium.

"They've done a lot of volume of work," he said.

"I think they've got enough experience behind them to get up for another game of footy."

English recruit Joe Greenwood has also been named on the bench, after only meeting his new teammates on Monday for the first time.

However, he played for St Helens at the start of this year's Super League season, allowing Henry to declare him ready to roll.

"Things don't change too much on the edge for back-rowers - they run their lines out there," Henry said.

"He'll need to do a little bit of defensive shuffling around with the edges as well to get his bearing of what we want to do defensively."

Henry indicated the Titans wouldn't lose too much in attack despite the loss of hooker Nathan Peats, with former five-eighth Tyrone Roberts slotted into the No.9 jersey.

"Tyrone adds a bit of a running dimension there - he's a bit quicker off the mark," Henry said.

"Hopefully, he can take advantage of some play-the-ball speed.

"The defensive load will be hard for him; he's going to need to get help from players around him defensively."

Source: AAP






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