{"id":579018,"date":"2026-08-24T17:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T17:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/579018\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T17:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T17:44:12","slug":"watene-zelezniak-broke-collarbone-scored-try-now-faces-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/579018\/","title":{"rendered":"Watene-Zelezniak broke collarbone, scored try, now faces surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warriors winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak will undergo surgery tomorrow on a broken collarbone suffered in Saturday night’s 45-26 victory<\/a> over the South Sydney Rabbitohs that lifted the side to the top of the NRL ladder.<\/p>\n

The injury happened in the first half of the match at Sydney’s Accor Stadium, when Watene-Zelezniak came down hard on his right shoulder. He kept playing and in fact scored a try.<\/p>\n

Head coach Andrew Webster told Newstalk ZB’s Jason Pine he was hopeful the 31-year-old could return in time to play in the NRL finals, which starts on September 4 and runs until October 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople probably don\u2019t realise, Dallin did it in the first half,\u201d Webster said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe kept running the football, wincing, and going back to the wing in pain. At halftime he took his jersey off to try and get it treated and I saw him try and put it back on and it wasn\u2019t a nice look.”<\/p>\n

The win was soured by a broken collarbone for winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Webster said the team tried to get Watene-Zelezniak off the field, but he chased a play and scored before he could be replaced.<\/p>\n

“He was about to come off but he turned and chased, got the pass and put it down with his left hand not his right,” Webster said. <\/p>\n

“Never scored a try with his left hand ever, pretty brave, extremely brave. I thought it was inspirational what he did last night.”<\/p>\n

There was a bittersweet edge to the try. It moved Watene-Zelezniak level with Shaun Johnson on 79, the second-most in Warriors history, and was his 20th of the season, making him the first Warriors player to reach 20 in more than one season after his 24 in 2023.<\/p>\n

Webster said the injury was not necessarily season-ending.<\/p>\n

“He’ll be right, Dal will work it out,” Webster said.<\/p>\n

The win moved the Warriors level with Penrith and the Sydney Roosters on 38 points, setting up a tight run to the minor premiership. Sitting on +295, they needed to beat Souths by 19 points to edge past the first-placed Panthers (+294) on points differential.<\/p>\n

They got there thanks to rookie five-eighth Luke Hanson’s 80th-minute field goal, which sealed the result after the Bunnies nearly pulled off a spectacular second-half comeback. The Roosters (+163) have a game in hand and play Wests Tigers on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Warriors host Newcastle and Manly over the final two rounds, while Penrith face Canterbury and Wests Tigers, and the Roosters square off with the Dolphins and Souths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warriors winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak will undergo surgery tomorrow on a broken collarbone suffered in Saturday night’s 45-26 victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,577,69,213,3006],"class_list":["post-579018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}