Brown 'rested' from training, Opacic in fitness battle

Eels five-eighth Dylan Brown insists he will be fully fit for Sunday night’s grand final against Penrith after sitting out training on Monday, but centre Tom Opacic remains in doubt.

Brown watched on as his Parramatta team-mates trained in front of up to 5,000 fans at Kellyville, while Opacic did some fitness work with a trainer.

The Kiwis international said he was just resting after last Friday night’s epic 24-20 preliminary final defeat of the Cowboys in Townsville but Opacic faces a race against the clock to be fit.

The Hull KR bound centre was a late omission from the match in North Queensland after succumbing to a hamstring injury and was replaced by Bailey Simonsson.

Eels coach Brad Arthur is expected to make a call on Opacic’s fitness after the team trains on Wednesday.

“Obviously if both Bailey and Tom are healthy it’s going to be a hard decision for Brad to make,” Brown said.

“Whoever is there I am happy with that, and I can’t wait.”

Brown said he had dreamed of playing in an NRL grand final and would be ready to take on the Panthers before an 80,000 capacity crowd at Accor Stadium.

“It is actually nothing,” Brown said. “I am so surprised. Brad came up to me and he said ‘you’ve got a golden ticket today’.

“It was just a bit of a fun training session today to get the boys moving so I am still going to go in the gym just to do what I need to do with my body, but I’ll be good.”

Opacic said he was hopeful but not certain to be fit but would have a better indication after he recovers from Monday’s session.

“I got through a bit of running today, so hopefully it pulls up well. I’ll run again on Wednesday and hopefully I can tick a few more boxes,” Opacic told the NCA NewsWire. “I got up to a bit of high speed today.

“I daresay I’d have to run fully on Wednesday or by the main session on Friday. It’s all about running at high speed and under fatigue.”

The 27-year-old underwent similar testing last week before being ruled out of the match against the Cowboys.

“I was pretty confident I would play, but there was a risk of doing more damage and costing the team if I went out there,” he said.

“I think it was a slight tear. It was nothing major because I’ve been moving freely.”