Kearney opens up on injuries

Stephen Kearney fears he could be without Shaun Johnson for a while.

The halfback picked up an ankle injury in the team’s 26-4 win over Wests Tigers last weekend and hasn’t been picked for Saturday’s NRL game against the Roosters at Mt Smart Stadium. In his absence the Warriors will again rely on Johnson’s backup, Mason Lino.

Kearney revealed yesterday he doesn’t know when Johnson will be back.

‘‘He won’t be playing this week and there’s probably a chance he won’t be ready for next week, but it’s a week-to-week thing for him at the moment.’’

Johnson missing games used to be something Warriors fans worried about, but this season Lino has demonstrated he’s up to playing at NRL level. The first time he filled in for Johnson this season was the away game against the Roosters and he was sensational in the 30-6 win.

‘‘He’s been fantastic. He’s always done a great job for us,’’ Kearney said of Lino.

‘‘He understands what his role is within the group and understands his job.’’

Although Issac Luke, who dislocated his shoulder against the Tigers, has been named in the team to take on the Roosters and took part in yesterday’s training session, it’s still not confirmed that he’ll play.

‘‘He’s not out of the woods yet, it’s a very similar situation to last week,’’ Kearney said, referring to the knee injury Luke picked up against the Storm in round eight.

‘‘He [Luke] has a couple of things to tick off before he’s given an all-clear.

‘‘I’ll sit down with the medical team and decide what’s going to be best for Issac this week.

‘‘But he got through training OK today and he’s done pretty well over the last couple of weeks with that sort of thing, so we just need to see how he gets through the next couple of days.’’

The Roosters were tipped by many Australian pundits (yes, the same ones who said the Warriors would get the wooden spoon) to win this year’s Premiership.

However, they’ve won only five of their first nine game and only narrowly beat the crisis-riddled Sea Eagles 22-20 last weekend.

‘‘Last week, that’s the best game that I’ve seen Manly play,’’ Kearney said.

‘‘They dominated every statistic in that game. I think they ran 500 more metres. For the Roosters to come out on top says a lot about the Roosters.

‘‘They’re a quality team with quality individuals, rep players. I guess they’ll be smarting a bit, when we last played them, after that. We anticipate their best game on Saturday at five o’clock.’’

Meanwhile, outside back Gerard Beale, one of the Warriors’ big off-season signings, will make his first appearance in club colours this weekend, albeit for the reserve grade NSW Cup team.