Hip operation to fix Michael Weyman
BY TIM BARROW
07 Oct, 2010 01:00 AM
Premiers St George Illawarra are hopeful injured prop Michael Weyman will be up and running by January, ready to start their NRL title defence.Weyman will have surgery on a degenerative hip condition in Sydney today, after struggling with it and other related groin problems for the last two months of the season.
Dragons high performance manager Jeremy Hickmans - who will fly to Auckland on Sunday to join the English squad as head conditioner for their Four Nations campaign - said he expected Weyman to make a full recovery.
"He knew at some point he would need the operation," he said."It's one of those things that he did struggle with for the last six weeks of the season and we used him for what he was able to do.
"But he always knew he was going to need the operation."
The injury forced Weyman out of contention for the Australian Four Nations squad.
The Australian team tackles Papua New Guinea at Parramatta Stadium on October 24, the day after the tournament kicks off with the England-New Zealand clash in Auckland.
Brett Morris, Darius Boyd and Dean Young are included in the Australian squad and Nathan Fien, Jason Nightingale and Jeremy Smith are part of the Kiwi camp, but the rest of the Dragons players continued to celebrate, before their presentation night in Wollongong tomorrow.
Weyman came from the field in the 30th minute of Sunday's 32-8 grand final win over the Roosters, after copping a glancing blow to the temple from Daniel Conn.
Heavily concussed, Weyman only started to recover his sensibilities with about 10 minutes remaining in the game.
Hickmans expects Weyman will rejoin St George Illawarra's preseason training about the same time as he would if he was part of Australia's Four Nations campaign.
"We'll wait to see what the damage is [from surgery]," he said.
"But that would be the time we'd hope to have him running if he was on tour anyway.
"So he should be right for the start of next season."
