Sydney Roosters forwards Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Lindsay Collins will be able to return at the World Cup earlier than expected after confirmation suspensions will be able to be served in warm-up games.
With Australia losing talent to other nations by the day, Queensland State of Origin prop Lindsay Collins is all but a certainty to be included in Mal Meninga's 24-man squad.
Collins copped a four-match suspension in Round 24 however for a devastating hip drop tackle.
He has already served two of those matches with the Sydney Roosters, who beat the South Sydney Rabbitohs in Round 25, before losing to the same team in the first week of the finals to have their season come to an end.
It left Collins with two games to serve, which were going to be the opening two games of the World Cup, when Australia will take on Fiji and Scotland, before completing the group stage against Italy.
However, he will now be available to play Scotland, with The Sydney Morning Herald reporting an application lodged to have the Prime Minister's XIII game count as one in Collins' suspension has been successful.
It's similarly good news for Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, who has a three-game suspension to serve for a dangerous contact charge during the Roosters' finals loss.
The Kiwis have a warm-up game against Leeds scheduled, and it will now count as one of the Kiwi enforcer's suspended games, meaning he will be free to play the third game of the group stage and have a hit out before the finals.
New Zealand take on Lebanon and Jamaica in their first two games, before playing Ireland at Headingley on October 28, meaning it will have been around seven weeks since Waerea-Hargreaves last took to the field by the time he is allowed to play the final group stage game.
” suspensions will be able to be served in warm-up games”.
Laughable.