McLean out with foot injury

JORDAN McLean’s debut Cowboys season is in tatters, with the North Queensland prop to miss the entire State of Origin series and possibly the rest of the year.

McLean will undergo surgery on a foot injury today in Brisbane after limping from 1300SMILES Stadium during last Thursday’s shock 33-14 loss to Penrith.

The NSW Origin hopeful was North Queensland’s big off-season signing, joining the Cowboys from Melbourne to form an all-star engine room with Test stars Matt Scott and Jason Taumalolo.

However the 26-year-old is facing at least three months on the sidelines, and likely longer, ruling him out of Origin contention for the Blues in 2018.

McLean is believed to have suffered a Lisfranc fracture, one of the most serious foot injuries which can be notoriously tough to recover from.

Cowboys football operations boss Peter Parr said McLean was dealing with the setback well.

“He will have surgery (today) in Brisbane,” he said.

“We expect the recovery will be a minimum of three months. We will see how the surgery goes.

“I’ve spoken to him and he is disappointed but has accepted it’s life. He will get the surgery done, start the recovery and we will look after him.

“We can’t change it. We’ve got to deal with what’s in front of us.”

McLean was widely tipped to finally crack the State of Origin arena this season.

He was part of the extended Blues squad last year before going on to make his Test debut for the Kangaroos in the World Cup, playing all six of Australia’s matches in the tournament.

The loss of McLean is a massive blow to North Queensland who have a 1-3 record after four rounds.

They face the undefeated New Zealand this Saturday.