Liam Martin is hoping a $500 pair of orthotics will help relieve persistent discomfort in his feet after being forced to undergo scans for a potential second bout of turf toe.
The international back-rower sent a scare through the Panthers camp two weeks ago after he experienced agonising pain beneath his right big toe.
Martin suffered
ligament damage in the same area beneath his left big toe in Origin I last year, which forced him to miss an NRL game.
The 27-year-old confirmed to this masthead he was due to meet with a podiatrist on Wednesday in the hope of having his shoes and football boots fitted out with inserts.
Had Martin continued to play without orthotics, Panthers medical staff feared he would have been severely limited in terms of what he could do at training each week.
Martin, last year’s Clive Churchill Medallist in the grand final win over Melbourne, explained that his running style was behind the problem, and he was generating “too much power when taking off”. The way he positions his body means his big toes are absorbing most of his body weight.
“I felt it a couple of weeks ago, the toe was slowly getting more sore and it almost felt like a type of arthritis, and it kept throbbing,” Martin said.
“I mainly felt it when I was taking off. I said to the physios, ‘It’s pretty sore’, so they sent me for a scan. It came back clear, and there was no turf toe.
“But the way I run, I load up through the joint. They gave me a couple of days off legs. And the orthotics will hopefully fix the problem.”
Martin is not in doubt for the Panthers’ season opener against Cronulla in Las Vegas, and said his AC joint – which required painkilling injections most of last year – and a rib injury he picked up during a wrestling session before the NRL grand final, were fully healed.
The Panthers had several players undergo off-season shoulder surgery, including Nathan Cleary, Dylan Edwards, new recruit Blaize Talagi and Liam Henry. All four are expected to be available for the opening-round clash against Cronulla, with only Henry in some doubt.
The young front-rower is expected to play limited minutes this weekend when the club holds an in-house opposed session. Henry was the only player of the quartet to also require a rotator-cuff repair, which requires more time to repair.
The Panthers had hoped to have a hit-out against NSW Cup side North Sydney, only for Melbourne – for whom the Bears are a feeder club – to poach four players for their own trial this weekend.
Coach Ivan Cleary spiked the Bears’ trial because “we didn’t really get what we thought we were going to get.”
Cleary told this masthead over the weekend that had the scrimmage against a second-string Bears proceeded, it would have been the equivalent of “the grand final winner playing against a Ron Massey team”.
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