Star PNG centre ruled out of Pacific Championships
Melbourne Storm star centre and Papua New Guinea international Justin Olam has been ruled out of the remainder of the Pacific Championships due to injury.
The confirmation regarding his injury comes after, he was a notable absence last week against the Cook Islands two weeks ago. Coming up against Fiji this weekend, Justin Holbrook confirmed he will take no further part in the tournament.
“The reason I originally named him in the 21 [man squad] was because we knew he wouldn’t be right for the first game,” Holbrook said via NRL.com.
We had a week off so that gave us two more weeks to see how his knee would recover, but he’s still unable to run on it yet.
“I rang him after Cook Islands game to see where he was at and he said, ‘look, I just haven’t got the clearance from the physios’, which is understandable.
“He had the two extra weeks to try and recover but it wasn’t enough. He still needs a couple more weeks.”
Olam isn’t the only player to be ruled out for Papua New Guinea, as they have also lost Warrington Wolve-bound Rodrick Tai and Featherstone’s McKenzie Yei.
Tai has been ruled out with a knee injury that he picked up against the Cook Islands, while Yei arrived at camp with a knee complaint and has been since training on his own to ease his recovery.
“He’s missed a few weeks through injury and obviously with a long flight, he’s just not right yet, so they’re gonna pretty much spend the week doing rehab and then we’ll just reassess him next week,” Holbrook said of Yei.
