Back pain kills start for Frizell
THE mystery surrounding Tyson Frizell’s no- show with his Dragons teammates in Townsville appears to be solved, with the New South Wales State of Origin backrower reportedly suffering back pain.
Dragons coach Paul McGregor was coy when asked about Frizell’s absence ahead of tonight’s clash with the Cowboys, refusing to elaborate on why Frizell had not travelled with the rest of the team.
Townsville’s Nene Macdonald will also not play for the Dragons tonight after suffering a foot injury during last week’s clash against the Tigers.
The Dragons are under pressure to score a win tonight after suffering back to back losses, but Frizell himself said his team would not choke at the business end of the season.
“We know, it’s been spoken about during the middle of the year and even spoke at the start of the year when we had our run, people are just waiting for that time to come,” Frizell said. “So I guess when you have two losses in a row that’s when it comes up again.”
In 2017 the Red V led the competition with seven from eight wins in the opening two months of the season but went on to miss the finals.
“It’s happened before, so rightly so people can try to write us off,” Frizell said.
“It’s happened in the past at this time of the year but I guess now we are sitting in a different position, we have held our spot for a long time.
“We’re not playing that bad, a lot of teams are playing really well at the moment and I guess we are going through that stage where we are struggling to put in 80- minute performances.”
Frizell insisted, despite their losing run, no one within the club had hit the panic button for tonight’s game.
He also revealed, he is in a better position to rebound from any lapses in form on their run into September.
“It’s a lot more relaxed. At stages last year we tried to find too many things with what was going wrong,” he said.
“We know what we need to do and like I said we are only one good performance away from getting back to the footy I know we can play.
“I honestly think it’s one good game for us to click into gear and start our run into the finals.”