Jack Bird has got through his rugby league return unscathed, navigating safely through his first game in 12 months in St George Illawarra's 28-6 trial loss to Parramatta.
Bird played just 25 minutes as planned by Dragons coaches, and spent his entire stint at left centre.
He laid on a break in the lead up to the Dragons' only first-half try, forcing an error with a hard hit before putting Mat Feagai down field with a slick underarm pass.
The 25-year-old has not played an NRL match since May 2019 at Brisbane, before missing the rest of that season with a sternum injury.
He returned in one trial at fullback for Brisbane last February, but went down on the eve of the first round with a season-ending ACL injury.
Bird has mostly trained in the second row at the Dragons, but there is some thought he could play left centre after the club opted out of pursuing Israel Folau.
Fellow new recruit Andrew McCullough also got through 20 minutes without concern, in his first game back since a hamstring tendon rupture last July.
Will Smith impressed for Parramatta, scoring one try and setting up another in his push for the club's No.14 jersey before the match was called with 11 minutes to go.
Oregon Kaufusi also scored one try and Isaiah Papalii, with both sides running teams of players who had limited first-grade exposure last year.
In the only real injury concern, Eels recruit Michael Oldfield suffered a knee injury after just 12 minutes which could hurt his push to claim a centre spot.
