Elliott learns his lesson after paying for rushed return

After suffering a recurrence of a groin problem after his Knights debut in Round 1, Adam Elliott concedes his recent 10-week injury layoff could have been avoided if he hadn’t rushed his initial return. 

The 28-year-old spent the off-season rehabbing the injury which he suffered at the back end of last year with the Raiders, and in a bid to prove himself to his new coach and teammates at Newcastle he played against the Warriors in the club's season-opener despite his body not being ready.

But ahead of his return this Sunday against the Titans, the forward said he's been careful not to make the same mistake twice and even delayed his return in order to be certain he was ready. 

"Me being a bit hard-headed, I wanted to prove I was willing to work hard and train hard, but what I really needed to do was just slow down a little bit, bide my time and give it a few more weeks," Elliott said. 

That was the biggest reason why I didn’t play against Parramatta [in Round 9]. I would have been going in there similar to how I went into Round 1, with a little bit of doubt as to whether my body was up to it.

Adam Elliott

"I couldn’t go into a game like that again. Now I have had essentially three extra weeks to prepare, the week going into Parramatta I was preparing and then the two weeks with the bye, so I have had extra time to get some running in my legs."

Despite the lingering groin injury causing him issues for the best part of the last eight months, Elliott is confident it won't be an ongoing issue in 2023. 

"It all went back to the root cause of my pelvis not being strong enough for how I want to play. But I’ve built that all back up now and it’s been a long slog, I have not had many days off in the last 10 weeks," he said. 

"The club has been great and we have outsourced part of the rehab process.

"We have ticked every box we can to make sure that this doesn’t happen again and I am really confident now."

Newcastle are looking down the barrel of a fourth-straight loss this weekend and risk falling well behind the pack jousting for a spot in the top eight if they can't bounce back in Round 11.