Out-of-favour Newcastle winger Nathan Ross will miss the start of the premiership and faces at least six weeks on the sideline after suffering a compound dislocation of his finger.
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But the Knights fan favourite, who has been shopped around by the club during the off-season, admits he would have faced an uphill battle to win a starting spot in the top grade ahead of Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Edrick Lee even if fully fit.
"Edrick and SKD have trained really well all pre-season and rightly so, deserve to be there with their trial form from the weekend," Ross said.
"I've got a lot of work to do to get back in there when I finally get the finger right.
"In all honesty, even fully fit, I would have had my hands full grabbing one of those wing spots after the way the outside backs have trained and played over the pre-season.
"Once the finger is right, hopefully I can press my claims back in [NSW] Cup and maybe get a look-in down the track. I just need to make sure when I'm back playing and an opportunity comes knocking, I've got to be ready to answer the door."
Ross' troublesome finger on his left hand has plagued him for several seasons.
He has dislocated it a number of times previously and had reconstructive surgery at the end of the 2017 season in a bid to get it right.
He played with it strapped last year without any problems but suffered a compound dislocation last week catching a ball at training.
"It's pretty unfortunate. I obviously had a pretty rough trot with injury last year with the pelvis and having to play with it so long when it wasn't right before getting it properly fixed,"Ross said.
"That was frustrating enough but for this to happen now when I was hoping to get back to playing some of my best footy this pre-season is tough to take.
"The aim was obviously to push my claims in and around the first grade squad as hard as I could so it's pretty upsetting."
Ross said the constant speculation surrounding his future at the club despite the fact he has two seasons to run on his current contract has also been unsettling.
"Obviously, I've been reading what you guys have been writing but as far as I'm aware, I'm signed here for the next two years and I'm dedicated to the Knights," he said.
"If I had my way, I'd finish my career here and be a Knight forever.
"But things don't always pan out how you want them too and I'm not naive when it comes to that because players are moved on or leave clubs now all the time before their deals are up."
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Despite talk of a potential deal with an English Super League club, Ross said he hasn't had a concrete offer put to him from anywhere else.
"If something came up with any sort of solid backing, I'd have to weigh it up.
"But there has been nothing solid put on the table for me to even consider up until now so I'm just concentrating on doing my absolute best here."
