The NZ Warriors will be without star wing David Fusitu'a until at least round five of the restarted NRL competition.
Fusitu'a is completing a 14-day self-isolation in a Sydney hotel, after he was granted personal leave to remain in New Zealand, instead of joining the rest of the squad in group quarantine at Tamworth.
Coach Stephen Kearney says he has two daily training sessions to complete, but because he will leave the hotel just days before the competition restarts on May 28, he will likely miss their first two matches.
"He will get out of isolation on the 25th or 26th, so the reality is that he won't have been able to stretch his legs out to run properly," Kearney says. "So I think it's going to take a good couple of weeks to get him NRL ready."
Kearney says the team's second late arrival - hooker Nathaniel Roache - could be fit for their second game back.
Tonga international Fusitu'a has been provided with training equipment, which was delivered to his hotel room earlier this week.
Kearney also confirms that the club had applied for border exemptions for the players' families, who would start joining them when they move out of quarantine and into their Central Coast base.
Those exemptions would allow families to join the players without first undergoing a 14-day quarantine of their own.
"We've got a couple of families that we've applied for some exemptions for," he says.
"We believe, in the next couple of weeks, there could be some announcements around a trans-Tasman 'bubble', so some families are prepared to wait on that.
"At the moment, they're required to go into 14 days isolation in a hotel room and my opinion is that it would be tough work, if you had three kids in a hotel room."
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