{"id":484991,"date":"2026-02-17T04:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T04:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/484991\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T04:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T04:22:09","slug":"it-is-what-it-is-gould-confirms-horror-injury-blow-for-bulldogs-recruit-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/484991\/","title":{"rendered":"“It is what it is”: Gould confirms horror injury blow for Bulldogs recruit – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> director of football Phil Gould has confirmed Leo Thompson<\/a> will miss more than two months with a calf injury.<\/p>\n

Thompson was set to play in the All-Star game over the weekend, but was a late withdrawal with what was described as ‘calf tightness’ at the time.<\/p>\n

On return to Belmore, though, it has emerged that he has suffered a Grade 3 calf tear.<\/p>\n

“Not good news for Leo Thompson<\/a>. MRK reveals Grade 3 calf tear. 10 weeks return to play at this stage,” Gould wrote.<\/p>\n

“It is what it is. We move on. Tough game rugby league.”<\/p>\n

Thompson arrived at the Bulldogs ahead of the 2026 season, expecting to be the club’s new forward pack leader, with the size and aggression of Canterbury’s pack being a criticism constantly levelled at the club last year.<\/p>\n

The prop was set to start in Las Vegas alongside Max King<\/a>, but will now be unavailable until likely the end of April.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs have two weeks off after their Las Vegas game, one to travel back, and then the Round 2 bye which will soften the blow, but he will still likely miss games against the Canberra Raiders<\/a> (away, Round 3), Newcastle Knights<\/a> (home, Round 4), South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> (away, Round 5), Penrith Panthers<\/a> (home, Round 6), Parramatta Eels<\/a> (away, Round 7) and Brisbane Broncos<\/a> (away, Round 8) before being a shot at returning in Round 9 against the North Queensland Cowboys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Thompson out, the Bulldogs could well turn to either Josh Curran<\/a> or Samuel Hughes<\/a> to start in the front row alongside King.<\/p>\n

Get set for the footy with the FREE Zero Tackle 2026 NRL Season Guide!<\/a> Packed with 130+ pages of player profiles, team previews, insights and analysis, the 2026 NRL Season Guide<\/a> is built for fans who want the full picture. Download your free Season Guide HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canterbury Bulldogs director of football Phil Gould has confirmed Leo Thompson will miss more than two months with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-484991","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\/484991","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=484991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}