Tom Gilbert suffered a fresh injury scare at the Dolphins’ preseason NRL camp but insists he’s on track to play the club’s season opener against the Rabbitohs.
The Dolphins forward, 24, has been tipped by teammates to take over the captaincy from retired skipper Jesse Bromwich.
Despite a fresh hiccup on Wednesday at their Sunshine Coast preseason camp, Gilbert declared he’ll be fit to face South Sydney when the season begins on March 7.
He hasn’t played an NRL game since May 2023 after a serious shoulder injury during that year’s Origin series and then ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in last February’s preseason trial.
Surgery was delayed for months when the Queensland prop developed a blood clot in his leg that later transferred to his lung.
There was more trouble for the enforcer at training on the Sunshine Coast on Wednesday when he rolled his ankle, but insists he remains on track to play a part in the Redcliffe club’s final trial game before his NRL return.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
“It was tough, but it’s actually going to help my career,” he said of the long lay-off.
“(If you’re constantly playing) you don’t get the opportunity to reflect for a long time, as long as I did.
“It’s put me in a much better frame of mind and physically I’ll be better too, once the time is right.”
Gilbert admitted it was tough to watch NSW roll through the injury-hit Queensland pack last year and a chance to return to that cauldron was driving him.
“It had its moments, you question a lot of things and things were really tough,” he said.
“But when the time was right I starting seeing it for what it was … a chance to come back a better player and person.
“You want to be out there … it’s something that motivates me to get back, be a better player and be in those (Origin) conversations.”
Gilbert is a frontrunner to take over as Dolphins captain in the club’s third NRL season, with an announcement expected imminently.
“It would be an honour,” he said.
“Jesse was a great skipper but foremost a great person and did such a great job for this club.
“I’d welcome it with two hands if I had that opportunity. We have so many great leaders … who can fill the void.”
Winger Jamayne Isaako led the praise this week, saying Gilbert’s status and maturity belied his tender age.
“It’s why you play football; to be there for your mate and get the appraisal of them in the locker room,” Gilbert said.
“If any of my mates are giving me a compliment it is a nice feeling.
“They’re the blokes I want to go out and try and impress and I want them to know I have their back.
“It is humbling.”
Shane Richardson has boldly claimed the appointment of a new Wests Tigers board can turn the embattled club from NRL strugglers into a top-four force in the space of 18 months.
More than 12 months on from a bloody boardroom coup which led to Lee Hagipantelis’ exit as chair of the club, the Tigers on Wednesday announced a new-look board.
Former NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, who has served as the Tigers’ interim chair for the past year, is one of four independent directors alongside Paralympian Annabelle Williams and business leaders Charlie Viola and Michelle McDowell.
They join existing board members representing Balmain (Danny Stapleton), Western Suburbs (Stephen Montgomery) and the Holman Barnes Group (Dennis Burgess), which has itself been embroiled in boardroom drama.
While corporate governance is usually enough to send the average punter to sleep, Richardson said a strong and stable board was the final piece of the jigsaw for the Tigers.
Over the past 12 months the club has overhauled its roster, as well as making several commercial and community-focused changes.
Those changes, Tigers chief executive Richardson said, should help coach Benji Marshall avoid the club’s fourth-straight wooden spoon and have fans dreaming of a return to the finals for the first time since 2011.
(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
“I won’t back away from it, we’ve got a team that can compete for the eight,” Richardson said on Wednesday.
“People will say 12th is good given what we’ve done the last few years.
“But I’d consider success being top 10 and striking for the eight and eventually, the year after, looking to make the four.
“I’m not going to be around forever and I want to win something before I go.
“We’re probably a couple of players short of being top four but we’ll look at our recruitment strategy over the next 12 months.”
How the Tigers’ recruitment strategy works going forward will be one of the key decisions made at the new-look board’s first meeting on January 28.
Marshall and Richardson have had their way over the past year but the club has in the past been criticised for overspending and acting too slowly on the NRL open market.
“It’s very important with recruitment that things are kept confidential,” Richardson said.
“That’s something we’ll discuss with the board but I don’t want to pre-empt what this board says.”
© AAP
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