{"id":485556,"date":"2026-02-17T10:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485556\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:36:12","slug":"bulldogs-recruit-out-for-10-weeks-in-early-season-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485556\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs recruit out for 10 weeks in early season blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canterbury have suffered a crushing blow on the cusp of the NRL season with new recruit Leo Thompson out of action for 10 weeks.<\/p>\n

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Bulldogs supremo Phil Gould confirmed the news on Monday after the former Newcastle forward had scans on the injury sustained in Maori All-Stars camp.<\/p>\n

Thompson was a late withdrawal from the All-Stars clash as a precaution after it was initially thought he was experiencing tightness.<\/p>\n

Leo Thompson during his time at the Knights.\u00a0Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The severity of the injury has now been confirmed. The 25-year-old will miss the season opener against St George Illawarra in Las Vegas and the first two months of the NRL season.<\/p>\n

Thompson was recruited to give the Bulldogs much needed size and strength up front after they went out in straight sets in last year’s finals, having made the top four.<\/p>\n

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Gould was philosophical about the loss of Thompson when he posted the news on X.<\/p>\n

“Not good news for Leo Thompson … MRI reveals grade three 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

The Bulldogs had received better news on star playmaker Matt Burton, who left the field in Canterbury’s 28-0 trial win over Newcastle.<\/p>\n

“Matt Burton MRI scan today shows no tear of the hamstring … Awaiting full report, but appears good to go,” Gould earlier posted on X.<\/p>\n

“That’s a big congratulations to Bulldogs coaches and staff, who saw Matt Burton’s reaction in a tackle and ordered him to come from the field immediately.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canterbury have suffered a crushing blow on the cusp of the NRL season with new recruit Leo Thompson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-485556","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\/485556","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=485556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}