Johnathan Thurston has warned players could risk serious injury in the World Cup final unless additional padding is put in place to make the dangerous ingoal areas at Old Trafford safer.
he Kangaroos will run out to tackle the Kiwis in front of what is expected to be an international rugby league record crowd of more than 75,000 after the game was officially sold out. But Thurston's concerns immediately after the Kangaroos held their captain's run at the famous home of Manchester United were about player safety in the wake of what happened to Luke Lewis a few weeks back when he busted his shoulder after crashing into an advertising sign.
The ingoal areas at Old Trafford are approximately four metres long - less than half the size of normal NRL grounds - and immediately after that there is a steep drop off that dips straight into a hard paved area before the fence.
There was only a thin matting in place at certain sections on Friday but tournament organisers said extra matting would be in place before kick-off. But after watching Lewis crash out of the tournament, Thurston spoke up on behalf of the players. "Hopefully there is padding there for the boys that are going to score the tries because if there isn't we will see another incident like Lewie," Thurston said.
Asked if the team was likely to make a request, Thurston added: "Hopefully the tournament directors make sure there is safety.m"We don't want another repeat of what happened to Luke Lewis and I think everyone is well aware of the drop offs and how short the ingoals are. "So hopefully we are smart enough, we are in the biggest game of our history, that there will be safety precautions there."
Additional padding could interfere with the LED advertising signs behind the dead ball line but World Cup operations manager John Dutton later confirmed extra matting would go down before the game. "There is some additional matting that will be placed over where the LED boards are. That will be done overnight ahead of the game," Dutton said.
The Kangaroos first expressed their concerns several weeks ago after Lewis was injured and at that point they even highlighted Old Trafford as a potential danger because of the short ingoal areas. But Dutton added: "The LED boards were only installed on Wednesday night. That is still to be completed. What you will see tomorrow will be very different to what you saw today.
"We have staged 15 grand finals here at Old Trafford and we have a short ingoal area which obviously the players will need to adapt to. "But we have staged 15 successful matches here and we see no issues for the World Cup final."
Meanwhile, Billy Slater is back in full stride and appears a certain starter. Slater has made a miraculous comeback after suffering a knee injury in the quarter final against the United States.
Asked if Slater would be keen to play to make amends for what happened in the 2008 decider against the Kiwis when he threw a wild pass that led to Benji Marshall's game-turning try, Thurston said: "From what I saw from what he did on the pitch he is looking the goods.
"Obviously he has had the week off so he will be fresh and ready to play. "He is such a professional in the way he prepares and looks after his body so I think he'll be right to play. "And he won't have any demons from the last World Cup. He tackles everything front on so he will be right to roll."
