The Sydney Roosters will be without experienced Kiwi prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves for their NRL clash against Brisbane due to a calf injury.
Waerea-Hargreaves was set to mark his 300th game for the Roosters on Friday, but this milestone has been postponed.
Coach Trent Robinson explained, “He was going to celebrate his 300th game for the Roosters, which is our highest honor, you get a gold rooster (on your sleeve). But that won’t be tomorrow night — we’ll have to save it another week. He’s got an old man’s injury. It was really minor, but not good enough to play.”
Waerea-Hargreaves’ absence is significant for the Roosters, especially with lock Victor Radley dealing with a hamstring issue and prop Spencer Leniu serving the last match of his eight-game suspension for a racial slur incident involving Ezra Mam in Las Vegas.
Robinson expressed confidence that his team would not be overwhelmed by emotions stemming from the Vegas clash. “Not from our point of view,” he said. “The club, but also Spencer, has done penance on that. Obviously, he’s not playing tomorrow night and there won’t be any of that emotion from us. We’re going to play footy.”