In just his second game back from a 10-week absence due to a biceps injury, Roosters hooker Jake Friend only lasted seven minutes against the Knights before leaving the field holding his forearm.
Sydney coach Trent Robinson said Friend suffered a fracture, which could see him now on the sidelines for at least a fortnight.
"He's got a small fracture around the screw that re-attached the biceps," Robinson told reporters following his side's big win over Newcastle.
"It's not a couple of weeks and it's definitely not the season.
"A fracture – if you can plate it – is four weeks, and depending on the screw and all that, a fracture that you don't plate is eight weeks. So somewhere between that four and eight would be an uneducated guess."
Saturday's win over the Knights was the first time co-captains Boyd Cordner and Friend played together since round seven, and Robinson says the club is disappointed they'll have to wait a few weeks before the due plays together again.
"He's disappointed. We're all disappointed because finally we got back our crew of decision-makers – we got our captains back on the field for the first time in a long time," Robinson said.
Robinson now has a decision to make at the hooker spot, and says there's a couple of players who could fight it out for Friend's No. 9 jersey.
"There's two options for us really. There's a really good young kid who has played some games in Sam Verrills and there's Victor Radley, who is now a senior player," he said.
I don’t think his absence will make any difference.
Will eliminate 2-3 penalties per game for deliberate forward passes on top of his very slow delivery.
That would have made 7 origin players from the roosters and all way under the cap.
Very impressive indeed.
Is there any way we can entice Damien Cook to come over.
We have the money to make things work at any cost.
Dump Friend and make up the difference.
I think it’s time Jake Friend, Josh Dugan, Brett Morris and a few others I can’t recall just retire and be done with it, every time a blade of grass touches them they’re on the canvas, to injury prone.
Friends only attribute left is holding down in the ruck as we saw in last years semi and GF under Ashley Klein as ref.
The NRL has cracked down on that this year because of that and can’t see anything left for Friend to offer.
He is very slow, terrible delivery from dummy half and good for 2-3 forward passes which cost them the game against the Cowboys.
As I said, refs cracking down on holding down tactics now after the GF debacle under Klein.