Cronulla Sharks star halfback Nicho Hynes has confirmed he will be fit to face the Penrith Panthers as the NRL season kicks off in Las Vegas.
Playing in Friday night's pre-season challenge match against the Canberra Raiders, Hynes was substituted out of the game of the game at around the 50-minute park.
Despite having no obvious concern when he walked from the field, Hynes was seen shortly afterwards with an ice pack around his groin.
Speaking after the win, though, he said there was no issue, and he played for as long as planned.
"Just a bit of a tight abductor, but I think it was the plan to play that long anywhere, so just glad I got through that," Hynes said after the trial win over Canberra on Fox Sports.
The halfback, who was below his best in 2024 but comes into 2025 as one of Cronulla's most important players again, said he is feeling better than he has at any point of his career.
"It's the best I've felt in my career mentally and physically. I'm really excited for the year, had a really good off-season, a good pre-season and I'm just really happy at the moment," Hynes said.
The Sharks started slowly against the Raiders, with the play the ball crackdown from NRL officials impacting the flow of the game.
Craig Fitzgibbon's side, who are widely viewed as the most likely to challenge both the Melbourne Storm and four-time premiers the Penrith Panthers throughout 2025 after their off-season signing of Addin Fonua-Blake, also did themselves no favours with energy and effort throughout the early exchanges of the contest.
Hynes said he was happy with how his side found their groove after the opening 20 minutes though, and said combinations are still building ahead of 2025.
"I think we let ourselves down there in that first 20 [minutes], we dropped the ball out of yardage twice, roll ball [play the ball infringement] three times, so that brought them straight into the game and they won the kick chases," Hynes said on the way his side are building ahead of 2025.
"We got our groove back pretty well and we are just really looking forward to keeping the same crew together for this long now, combinations are still building and the connections are growing, so looking forward to getting over to Vegas."
The Sharks open their season against Penrith in Las Vegas on Sunday, March 2, (Saturday, March 1 local time) with kick-off set for 3:30pm (AEDT).