Farah in doubt
Wests Tigers skipper Robbie Farah is in doubt for Friday's clash against St George Illawarra as he continues to battle a shin injury suffered last weekend.
Farah, who sat out his side's final training run on Thursday morning, will be given until kick-off to prove his fitness ahead of the top-of-the-table clash.
The captain's injury woes are a major concern for the Tigers who have already lost half-back Robert Lui to a knee injury.
Full-back Wade McKinnon is also no certainty to play with a back complaint that forced him from the field midway through the second half of the win over Canberra.
Farah, who could play his way into a NSW jumper for Origin III with a strong performance against the Dragons, made no mention of his injury issue during his weekly press conference.
But assistant coach Royce Simmons confirmed the skipper is no certainty to play.
"Robbie hurt his leg last week and battled on with it in the second half," Simmons said at Concord Oval.
"He got treatment at half-time. It's a bruised shin and he'd prefer not to train today but we're hoping he'll be right for tomorrow."
"It's a big blow and we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if he's going to play, and Wade McKinnon is another player that's going to try to train, but in all crucial positions we're struggling a bit."
"It's a bit of a worry when we look across and see Rob Lui and Timmy Moltzen - two of our halves - training with the injured group, and they certainly won't play."
Asked to rate Farah's chances of taking the field for the Round 16 blockbuster, a hopeful Simmons replied: "He won't want to miss it and he'll do his best to play tomorrow. I mean it's probably more precautionary."
Meanwhile, Simmons was coy when pressed on who would wear the No.7 jumper against the Dragons but revealed Benji Marshall is most likely to assume the key role.
"Well at this stage we'll probably just move everyone in one (position)," he said.
"One of the centres will maybe go to five-eighth or maybe go to half-back - we'll play around with that a little bit. We know but I don't have to tell you blokes."
Simmons ruled out shifting Farah to half-back in the event that he plays and confirmed young gun Blake Lazarus won't be considered.
"I think when you take away Robbie Farah out of hooker people straight away start putting pressure on your halves," he explained.
"When you're playing against us your first thing's got to be dealing with Robbie Farah out of dummy half, so if you take him out of dummy half a lot of pressure then goes onto him at half or whoever is at half."
"Blake we think probably needs some more footy yet. He's a young bloke and he hasn't played any football for two years prior to this year, so he still needs a bit more experience in that area yet we think."
The Tigers enter the clash in third place on the NRL ladder on the back of four consecutive victories.
But Farah admits his side will have a much better idea of where it stands in the premiership pecking order following its visit to Kogarah.
"Obviously it's been a pretty decent last month for us but we know that we need to improve to go toe-to-toe with the Dragons," Farah said.
"Obviously they're the benchmark of the comp and it's going to be a real good challenge to see where we are at this point in time."
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