Curtis Scott will miss the rest of the NRL season with a fractured leg, while John Batemen has been cleared of a serious elbow injury following Sunday's scrappy win over the New Zealand Warriors.
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Scott has met with a surgeon about his troublesome right fibula, and will have an operation to remove a metal plate which was inserted when he fractured the same leg in 2016 at the Melbourne Storm.
The metal plate had made it impossible to scan Scott's leg, which he re-injured last month against the Canterbury Bulldogs in round 16.
Meanwhile, Bateman has avoided injury despite the sickening elbow hyper-extension he suffered in the second half against the Warriors on Sunday, but will be rested with a host of stars against Cronulla this weekend.
Bateman refused to leave the field against the Warriors, and finished the match heavily strapped.
"Hopefully it settles down a bit, it probably got caught in the wrong position and Rapa [Jordan Rapana] just jammed me," Bateman said.
"You get through it, just put a bit of strapping on it."
Scott's injury blow caps off a frustrating 2020 for the Melbourne Storm recruit, who is now planning to sue NSW Police for his brutal arrest in Moore Park on January 27.
The 22-year-old's legal team is seeking more than $100,000 in damages after he had seven charges against him thrown out of court two weeks ago.
Disturbing vision of Scott's arrest showed a group of police standing on Scott's ankle, before handcuffing, pepper spraying and tasering the Raiders centre.
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After signing in November on a four-year deal, Scott has only managed two tries from 13 matches in lime green, although Bateman backed his teammate to come out firing next season.
"He wants to be playing, we come to training, turn up every day to play rugby and obviously he's not doing that at the moment," Bateman said.
"[It's a ] massive relief for him mate, he's got off, everyone's seen what happened.
"To be fair it's probably cleared his name a little bit from people that tarnished him with a certain brush. The majority of them people haven't really said much now, it's good for Curtis I'm happy for him, it puts him in a good head space."
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, meanwhile, has defended the actions of the officers who arrested Scott.
"We couldn't leave him there. If we did and he did go on and commit more crimes or he injured himself, police are liable," Fuller told 2GB Radio.
"I'm sympathetic for police, who had to do something with him. The other option is this - you put a baton under each of his arms, you squeeze it down and you put him in the back of a truck.
"That is no less painful than being sprayed."
James Buckley
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
