‘I would have been a punish to deal with’: Nicho Hynes puts the NRL on notice with freakish return

A patient plan by the Sharks paid off when their most important player ripped the Dragons apart.

A second Dally M Medal in a row could be on the cards after Nicho Hynes picked up all six votes in his first game back from injury.

Cronulla’s patient approach to Nicho Hynes’ injury paid off handsomely, with the superstar halfback producing the best performance by any player this season in his side’s 40-8 win over the Dragons.

The reigning Dally M Medal winner was desperate to get back on the paddock from his calf injury as soon as possible, but Cronulla’s medical staff took no chances to ensure there was no risk of him aggravating the strain.

Nicho Hynes had to help out in other ways, with a calf complaint ruling him out of the first three rounds. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Hynes first suffered the injury before pre-season and then did it again the day before a scrimmage with the Roosters, with some reports suggesting he could miss the opening two months of the season.

Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon said it was tempting to bring him back early, but he held his nerve despite a shaky start to the season, with Hynes showing no rust in a dazzling display that has the rest of the competition on notice.

Hynes finished with a whopping seven line-break assists, four try assists and four offloads as he was finally able to unleash all the pent-up talent that he wasn’t able to showcase in the opening rounds.

“I would have been a punish to deal with. I feel sorry for the performance staff because I was trying to push them and push them,” he said after picking apart St George Illawarra’s defence with ease.

“I was pushing for round 1 and round 2, and they were like ‘we can't risk it’. It could be an extended time off the field if we pushed it.

“Once I got the plan to be back for this round, I was like, OK, I don't want to risk it.

“It's been a slow process because the tear was in a weird spot near the tendon, and if you go too quickly on it, it could go very fast.

Hynes picked up from where he left off with the best attacking performance we’ve seen in 2023. Picture: NRL Photos

“We just had to be careful of the kilometres we were doing each day at training and put a good plan in place to make sure I could get to game day.

“I haven't done a heap with the team, but I did enough so I could put in a performance like that.

“The second half was just the standard we want to play at each week.”

The Sharks are immediately premiership contenders with Hynes back in the side, but Fitzgibbon wanted to pay tribute to Braydon Trindall, who filled in at halfback in the first three games that allowed Hynes to fully recover.

Braydon Trindall has shown that he’s a more than reliable option if the Sharks need him in the halves. Picture: Mark Nolan/Getty Images

“We trusted that he was going to get his job done like he did, so I wasn’t sitting there thinking that we didn’t have a replacement,” Fitzgibbon said.

“I know what Braydon is capable of, so I was comfortable backing him to get the job done.

“With respect to Nicho’s injury, while it wasn’t a significant one, the only thing you can do is get it wrong (by bringing him back early). To flinch and throw him back a week early, if it doesn’t work out, then that’s on me.

“The medical staff were really helpful for me in making those decisions.”

If this is what Hynes can do in his first game back then the rest of the league should be worried, although the halfback is fully aware that his rivals will have plans in place to stop him from ripping them apart like he did throughout 2022.

Hynes knows that teams will be ready for him this time after his incredible efforts in 2022. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images

“They'll come and they’ll be doing their homework and coming after me and trying to put things in place to limit my opportunities,” he said.

“But if you want to be a premier player in this competition, you have to react in the moment and come up with different things if they're putting pressure on me and whatnot.

“There are some players around me who can take some pressure off me too, and they're working extremely hard to be in the game and stay in the game and have all options alive.

“I might be a marked player, but we have strike all over the field to put things in place to make sure we‘re ready to go.”