Green hurt but remains positive

Injured Warriors five-eighth Blake Green believes it could be beneficial for the club for him to be hurt right now.

The biggest scare for the Warriors is if Green picks up a significant injury, now that Shaun Johnson is no longer at the club. Green is helping to get rookies Chanel Harris-Tevita and Adam Keighran up to speed for the start of the season, but the club will get an early taste of what life is like without Green after he suffered a hamstring injury.

Thankfully for the Warriors, the injury isn’t that serious, but it will hamper his build-up for the season.

Green was on the field during the Warriors’ training session yesterday, giving advice. But for the next few weeks it will be Harris-Tevita and Keighran running the moves in the halves.

Green believes his injury will help them grow as players.

‘‘It’s a good opportunity because they’ll get two full weeks of training without me being on the field,’’ Green said. ‘‘They’ll learn on the run and it’s probably going to help their understanding of the game even further.’’

As for his injury, the 32-year-old Green said it occurred while in the middle of a training session.

‘‘I picked up a hamstring strain on Tuesday at training,’’ he said. ‘‘We were just doing a skills session. It’s nothing major, a couple of weeks and I’ll be back out there.’’

The Warriors’ first trial game is against the Melbourne Storm in Geelong on February 22, while their other one is against Wests Tigers in Whangarei a week later.

While Green’s injury isn’t serious, he’s unlikely to play in the first of those games, and is questionable for the second.

‘‘I haven’t really looked that far ahead,’’ he said. ‘‘To be honest, I probably wasn’t going to be playing in the first trial anyway and it’s up to Mooks [Warriors coach, Stephen Kearney] to see if I was going to play in the last one.

‘‘But I’m pretty confident that I’ll be ready to go for that one, it’s not until four weeks’ time.’’

Warriors assistant coach Stacey Jones said the club wasn’t overly worried about Green’s injury. ‘‘When players of his age go through a lot of preseason drag it’s tough on their bodies.

‘‘When a player like that pulls up feeling a bit tight in certain areas, you’ve got to give them a rest.’’