Former Dragons captain and current Cronulla rake Cameron McInnes is set to miss the opening month of the Sharks' 2022 season after scans confirmed the 28-year-old required minor surgery.
The South Sydney junior had previously been eyeing Cronulla's opening week clash against Canberra to both make his debut after joining the club prior to 2021 and make his return from an ACL injury.
However, these plans have been scuppered with CODE Sports claiming that McInnes would need to go under the knife to tidy up a meniscus injury.
Cronulla has since confirmed that the one-time NSW City representative will miss the club's trial contest against the Bulldogs on Monday night, as well as the first two rounds of the regular season.
Fans of the Shire side will now be required to wait until early-April at the earliest to see the defecting Dragon link up with recent Storm imports Nicho Hynes and Dale Finucane.
The Sharks Round 1 stoush with the Raiders is scheduled to take place at GIO Stadium on March 11.
McInnes' most recent first-grade appearance came during St George Illawarra's 30-22 win over Melbourne on September 27, 2020.
After making his debut for the Rabbitohs in Round 5, 2014, the hooker-come-lock forward has seen NRL action on a further 129 occasions.
“imperious Cronulla rake” Hmmm, not quite sure I follow your line of thought there.
I’d have said “putative (ie pencilled in as) Cronulla lock”.
Anyway, at this time of the season it’s no big deal. Move Dale Finucane to lock, bring Toby Rudolph off the bench to starting prop, and bring Royce Hunt onto the bench. That may actually be a stronger side, anyway.
I get the impression that if McInnes had not already been signed by John Morris, Craig Fitzgibbon would not have hired him once he had won over Finucane. However, having hired him, Cronulla will want to play him in the starting 13, and that pushes Finucane to prop where his small stature is prevents the Sharks making quite the best use of his talents.
What on earth does Finucane have to do with McInnes. If they didn’t get McInnes who would be the hooker that could even lace up his boots. Nearly all clubs would have jumped on McInnes. St George are m0r0ns for letting McInnes go, but Griffin’s wants his dad’s army of old Bronco’s it seems.
Blayke Brailey is Cronullla’s first choice hooker.
Jayden Berrell, Locky Miller (possibly) and Cam McInnes can cover for Brailey, but Brailey is the acknowledged first choice.
I’ve just seen the team list for the second trial. This is the one that is supposed to be a dry run for Round 1
Finucane replaces McInnes at lock.
Rudolf replaces Finucane at prop.