South Sydney Rabbitohs and Australian star lock forward Cameron Murray has been confirmed to hvae suffered a wrist injury.
The Rabbitohs' captain suffered the injury while in Australian camp during the Pacific Championships, and as a result will be ruled out of the final, which Australia will play against the winner of this weekend's game in Auckland between New Zealand and Tonga.
The Rabbitohs, in an injury update, confirmed Murray has suffered a scapholunate injury.
The injury will be assessed by a surgeon next week once he returns to Sydney, although it's unclear at this stage whether he will require surgery to repair the injury.
Multiple reports are suggesting that if Murray needs surgery on the injury, he could miss up to five months of game time, which will rule him out of approximately the first month of the 2025 NRL season.
Either way, with surgery or not, he is going to miss a sizeable chunk of the pre-season at South Sydney as Wayne Bennett prepares for his second stint in charge of the now Maroubra-based club.
Murray wasn't due to return to pre-season until the New Year regardless as all players in international games take their mandatory end of season break.
If he is ruled out in the opening weeks of the 2025 season, it will be a crushing issue for Bennett and the Rabbitohs, who will be looking to return to the top eight after two years in the wilderness, slumping down the table following their grand final appearance in 2021.
