THE Newcastle Knights are anxiously awaiting the green light to resume full-contact training after coach Adam O'Brien admitted that preparing players for a game in less than four weeks would be "cutting it fine".
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Players from all 16 NRL clubs regrouped on Monday for a biosecurity briefing and will be able to resume restricted training on Wednesday, in groups of 10 with no body contact.
It is now more than six weeks since the competition was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in that time players have been unable to participate in tackling or wrestling drills.
O'Brien was hopeful that the staged limitations, which have been imposed using Australian Institute of Sport guidelines, would be relaxed by Saturday, although according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the Rugby League Players' Association: "The restrictions will remain in place for the remainder of the week before normal training resumes next week."
"In terms of the contact load, we're starting to cut it really fine now," O'Brien told the Newcastle Herald.
"To make sure that, one, players are ready to perform at their best, and two, to reduce any chance of injuries, we really need to get into that contact sooner rather than later.
"We're really hoping we can progress to that contact phase on Saturday. That will put us in a three-week time frame [before May 28].
"Once it gets less than that, the duty of care you have to the players starts to become a talking point then."
Knights captain Mitchell Pearce said that while players had been able to maintain their strength and fitness levels in isolation, there was no substitute for full-contact training.
"As a player, you're looking forward to getting that contact," Pearce said on Tuesday.
"That's probably the biggest thing you miss out on when you're not around the team.
"It's a physical sport and you need that contact. So the quicker we can get that in, it's only going to make your body more prepared to play 80 minutes of footy in a contact sport."
Master coach Craig Bellamy, who was O'Brien's mentor at Melbourne, said he felt it was "unrealistic" to prepare players for a game in such a short time frame.
"But that's the situation we are in," Bellamy told Fox League Live.
"I'm a little bit concerned I suppose, not about our team, but I suppose about players' safety or welfare with the lack of contact.
"I think we are going to be able to start contact on Saturday but you'd love to be able to start it on Wednesday.
"We're not going to just let them go bashing into each other straight away. They are going to have to let their bodies adjust, but come Saturday I think there's only about two-and-a-half weeks before the first game."
O'Brien was looking forward to running an eye over his troops on Wednesday but had no reason to doubt they would all be in good shape.
"While they were training in isolation we asked them to do a few tests and we're pretty happy with the results," O'Brien said.
"I'm really confident that they're all in good shape, running wise.
"I'm happy that the running load is there, but it's the contact load we need to get."
