MOVING the NRL-Indigenous All Stars match to grand final week could be one way of lessening the chance of serious injury to the game's high-profile players, according to Brisbane coach Anthony Griffin.
It follows injuries to Greg Inglis (ankle) and Brent Tate (knee) after the NRL All Stars won an 11-try thriller at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast 36-28.
Inglis, who flew back into Sydney with Rabbitohs chief executive Shane Richardson yesterday to have scans on his left ankle, has been warned he could face four to six weeks on the sidelines. The 25-year-old, who suffered the injury when scoring a late try, will learn the full extent of the damage when the scan results come in today, but he will struggle to play in the Rabbitohs' season-opener against Sydney Roosters on March 5.
"It is frustrating. It's probably the first pre-season I've had for a while," Inglis told Channel Nine
Worryingly, it is the same ankle that kept him sidelined for the back end of last season. "(After scoring the try) I realised that something serious had happened," Inglis said. "It looked like a sniper just hit me from the grandstand."
The All Stars game has previously attracted controversy for seeing star players go down with injury. Two years ago Kurt Gidley (hamstring tendon) and Darren Lockyer (bicep) were injured - Gidley out for eight weeks.
Cowboys football manager Peter Parr, who had five players involved in the match, agreed with Griffin on the concept of the All Stars match, but questioned the timing. "I'd be loathe to be too critical of it given the enjoyment the players have for it," Parr said. "But playing a game of that intensity first up in the season is always a worry for the clubs."
Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy expressed reservations last year and yesterday other coaches privately said they felt the timing needed to be looked at.
Griffin said the relevance of the game was unquestioned, but the high instance of injury was a worry. "We put all our blue-chip players - and some of them have only been training for four weeks - into a game of that intensity and something is going to break," he said. "I'm a fan of the game and why we do it. I just don't think it should be the first game of the year. You ask blokes to trial in that intensity and you're significantly upping your chances of injury." All Stars skipper Benji Marshall and Indigenous captain Johnathan Thurston both spoke about the speed of the game and the intensity of the tackles.
"For the first game of the season, it's past being a trial. It's tougher than an NRL game," Marshall said.
Tate doesn't need scans as he only received a cork on his left knee, which has been reconstructed twice already. He hopes to play in next weekend's trial for the Cowboys against St George Illawarra. "If it had been a normal game I would have kept playing," he said.
Griffin thinks the game should be moved to the last week of the season, when the sport is already in a festive mode. He doubts every marquee player needs to be made available for the indigenous message to be highlighted. "Maybe the Friday night before the grand final as part of the celebration week leading up to the grand final would be a good spot for the All Stars," he said. "Obviously players from the two clubs in the premiership decider wouldn't be available, but there'd be plenty of others that would love to play."
Indigenous coach Laurie Daley said the risk of injury could strike a player any time in the season. "They can get injured anywhere. It's just one of those things."
