Penrith flyer Josh Mansour could miss the rest of the season with facial injury
THE immediate playing future of Penrith star Josh Mansour has been crushed by the worst facial injury in almost 40-years, according to rugby league’s longest-serving doctor.
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THE immediate playing future of Penrith star Josh Mansour has been crushed by the worst facial injury in almost 40-years, according to rugby league’s longest-serving doctor.
Without a contract for next season, the NSW Origin winger is at risk of missing the remainder of the 2018 season after X-ray’s indicated horrific damage to Mansour’s cheekbone, jaw and eye socket.
Mansour suffered the shocking injury when his head collided with Gold Coast winger Anthony Don’s knee last Sunday.
The popular 27-year-old has suffered multiple fractures with specialists unable to confirm the absolute extent of the damage until he undergoes surgery — possibly on Friday.
Over the past 48-hours, Mansour has met with plastic surgeons and eye specialists, who were needed to assess if the powerful winger had suffered any long-term damage to his eye sight.
How long Mansour is sidelined for, will depend on how many shattered bone fragments can be retrieved — and possibly grafted — by surgeons.
Dropping the bombshell on Fox League, Penrith halves coach Greg Alexander said the best case scenario for Mansour would be three months out of the game.
Alexander added that long-serving club doctor, Norm Southern, had stated to Penrith officials that he had never seen a football injury to a player’s cheekbone such as this before.
“It was a nasty fracture, it was more than a fracture,” Alexander said.
“It’s done a lot of damage, there’s bone fragments in there, it’s not just a depressed fracture, or a fractured eye socket, it’s a lot more than that.
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“Players can come back as quickly as three and four weeks from a depressed cheek fracture, but this is a little bit more detailed.
“And Norm Southern, who has been our club doctor — he was the club doctor when I was playing Harold Matthews so that’s 1979 — has been around a long time, he’s seen a lot of injuries, but he said it’s the worst cheekbone injury that he’s seen, which involves the eye socket and also the jaw.
“Best case scenario for Josh is three months.
“Worse case scenario is that he’ll need a bone graft and that could be the season.
“We’re hoping when the surgeons go in that they can put it back together and he might be on the field within 12 weeks.’’
The sickening injury is a double-blow for the off-contract Mansour who justifiably wanted to test his worth on the open market before recommitting to Penrith, or a rival club, next year.
Penrith general manager Phil Gould recently told the press that $400,000 a season wouldn’t get the Panthers “to first base.’’
Averaging a staggering 141 running metres over the first six rounds, Mansour’s early-season dominance made him a firm favourite to win a NSW Origin wing spot under Blues coach Brad Fittler.
Considered to be one of the most diligent and professional athletes off the field, Mansour’s career is in the hands of surgeons — less than 12-months after suffering a torn ACL prior to the 2016 Four Nations tour with Australia.
For the Panthers, Mansour will be replaced on the wing by the returning Dallin Watene-Zelezniak for Sunday’s game against Cronulla.