{"id":29111,"date":"2025-07-29T04:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T04:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/29111\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T04:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T04:24:08","slug":"nrl-tom-trbojevic-to-stay-at-centre-with-knee-all-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/29111\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL: Tom Trbojevic to stay at centre with knee all clear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Trbojevic has revealed he expects to see out the season at centre, while downplaying knee concerns ahead of Manly&#8217;s clash with the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nrl\/story\/_\/id\/45845983\/nrl-melbourne-storm-lock-star-playmaker-long-term-deal\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/r1524966_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nrl\/story\/_\/id\/45838604\/nrl-snakes-ladders-gold-coast-titans-climb-ladder-bottom-manly-sea-eagles-tumble\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753763048_48_r1524549_956x956_1-1.png&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.png\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>One month into the fullback&#8217;s shift out of the No.1 jersey, Manly suffered their first loss with Trbojevic in the centres in Sunday&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/rugby-league\/match\/_\/gameId\/602059\/league\/3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">42-4<\/a> defeat to Canterbury.<\/p>\n<p>That has left the Sea Eagles likely needing four wins from six games, with crucial matches against fellow finals hopefuls the Roosters on Saturday night at Brookvale.<\/p>\n<p>Manly&#8217;s defeat also prompted calls for Trbojevic to return to No.1, after his shift was initially considered a short-term sugar fix to help him regain confidence.<\/p>\n<p>Trbojevic has long maintained his preferred position is fullback, where he won the 2021 Dally M Medal and has been one of Manly&#8217;s best players for the past decade.<\/p>\n<p>But the 28-year-old said he now expected to remain on the right edge for the rest of the year after being moved by coach Anthony Seibold.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Tom Trbojevic has revealed he expects to see out the season at centre, while downplaying knee concerns ahead of Manly&#8217;s clash with the Sydney Roosters.\u00a0Jeremy Ng\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My indication is that I will stay there,&#8221; Trbojevic said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve moved there, so my focus is on being there and being the best version of myself there.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like anything. If you go move to do a different role in a job thinking you&#8217;re not going to be there fulltime &#8230; you&#8217;re not going to perform the job well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just my focus, I have to do it the best I can, that&#8217;s all I can focus on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since moving to centre against Wests Tigers last month, Trbojevic has been directly involved in nine of Manly&#8217;s 15 tries, six of those when he roamed to the left, creating an extra number on that side.<\/p>\n<p>Lehi Hopoate, however, has not had as much impact at fullback, while Trbojevic&#8217;s right side has been found out in defence at times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I still feel like I have been able to do what I do best and that is move around the field and play footy,&#8221; Trbojevic said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It obviously wasn&#8217;t our best performance on the weekend, mine included. I just have to reflect on that and get better and move forward. But feeling good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trbojevic and his brothers Ben and Jake spent Tuesday visiting their old Mona Vale Public School, swamped by students ahead of NSW public education week.<\/p>\n<p>The trio inspected the school&#8217;s goalposts that were built by their father, while Jake was labelled a teacher&#8217;s pet, Ben the troublemaker and Tom the maths whiz.<\/p>\n<p>Tom and Jake were also quizzed about their contracts, adamant it was the furthest thing from their minds this late in the season as the pair&#8217;s management close in on extensions for beyond next year.<\/p>\n<p>Tom also declared his right knee needed no serious examination, after he briefly stayed down following an awkward tackle late in Sunday&#8217;s loss.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a bit ginger but I got up and felt all right which is good,&#8221; Trbojevic said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It feels good now and I was able to play the rest of the game.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Trbojevic has revealed he expects to see out the season at centre, while downplaying knee concerns ahead&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-29111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}