Dragons lose Cooper for 4-6 weeks

Posted June 2, 2011 12:25:00

St George Illawarra centre Matt Cooper is to undergo surgery to repair fractures in his eye socket, cheekbone and hand and will be sidelined from NRL action for four to six weeks.

Cooper suffered the triple injury whammy in the space of back-to-back tackles against Wests Tigers on Sunday.

His injury absence comes at a bad time for the Dragons, who need all hands on deck during a draining representative period.

"He (Cooper) is going in for surgery tomorrow. We'll know a little bit more after surgery," Dragons performance director Jeremy Hickmans said.

"He got caught in the same tackle and he did his hand in the tackle before that.

"He's going to have them (the fracture repairs) done in the same surgery tomorrow which is quite handy.

"They're both the same kind of time (sidelined), that four to six-week time period."

The Dragons were giving little away as to who would come in at left centre against Parramatta on Friday night with a number of players running in the position at the team's final training session on Thursday.

- AAP

Tags: sport, rugby-league, nrl, australia, wollongong-2500

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