Cameron Munster to miss Kangaroos Tests as Melbourne Storm star reveals new injury details
Munster has missed a large chunk of the season and the Origin series.
Cameron Munster has revealed he will undergo surgery on both hips at the end of the season, in a move that will rule him out of contention for the Kangaroos' end-of-season Tests. The Storm superstar will return on Friday night for his first match since Magic Round in May when Melbourne takes on Parramatta at CommBank Stadium, looking to cement their spot at the top of the NRL ladder.
The Storm sit four points clear of nearest rival Penrith in the race for the minor premiership. And Munster has only featured seven times for the Storm so far this season after tearing the adductor tendon in his groin. The superstar five-eighth says an imbalance in his hips caused the injury that ruled him out of the State of Origin series for Queensland but his return is set to provide the Storm with a massive boost heading into the business end of the season.
"He knows what the big games are about, so it's just a matter of now getting ready for those," Storm coach Craig Bellamy said on Thursday after naming Munster as one of his four interchange players for the Eels clash. "Hopefully he can have an uninterrupted run into the finals. The whole club's happy to have him back and with the talent he's got and the experience he's got, he should be a real good addition to us.
"But we just hope he can get through with his injury. It's been a long one and it's taken a lot of getting over and a lot of rehab work to get to where he is now." Munster has been back in full training with the Storm for the past fortnight and is raring to get back into action. The 29-year-old says while he's been able to avoid having surgery so far in 2024, he will have to go under the knife later in the year in a move that will wipe out most of his off-season.
“I didn’t need surgery, I tore the ligament which surgeons go in and cut – I did a surgical tear myself – so I saved the club some money [by avoiding surgery],” Munster told The Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday. “There’s no ligament left, so there’s nothing to worry about (in terms of re-injuring it).
“But I’ll need both hips done at the end of the year...These old hips and legs are coming to an end. One of the major reasons I’m getting groin pain is because of the imbalance in the hips. I can’t do anything until the end of the year. Recovery for the hips will be nine to ten weeks. So there goes the off-season.”
Storm welcome back several stars for clash with Eels
Melbourne will also be boosted by the return of Christian Welch (back) and Nelson Asofa-Solomona (hamstring) for the clash against the Eels, after the veteran forwards missed last week's victory over the Sydney Roosters. Asofa-Solomona's future at the Storm has been clouded in uncertainty amid reports linking the Storm to the potential signing of in-demand Wests Tigers prop Stefano Utoikamanu.
"Hopefully he can play again like he was playing before last week," Bellamy said about Asofa-Solomona. "He had a couple of really good games coming off the bench and done some real damage, so we'll be looking for him to do that again." The Eels haven't won since May and sit second-from-bottom after losing their last five games but have a strong record at home against the Storm, having never lost to Bellamy's side in regular time at CommBank Stadium.
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Parramatta have been rocked by injury, with halfback Mitch Moses out for the season with a biceps rupture, and Maika Sivo, Junior Paulo and J'maine Hopgood also sidelined. But Bellamy has warned his Storm side that the Eels still have plenty of strike power to cause them damage.
"They've still got a lot of good players and they're a big side - they've got a lot of big forwards there that are experienced as well," Bellamy said. "They'll certainly miss Mitch Moses, without a doubt, but Dylan Brown will go about another peg. He's a really good player and (Daejarn) Asi that comes along the other side, he's a good kicker of the ball.
"And they've always got (Clint) Gutherson that's always around the ball and always dangerous. I'm not quite sure why they are where they are at the moment, but we're just worrying about what we can do and hopefully it will be good enough."
with AAP
