Brisbane coach Anthony Seibold is hopeful James Roberts' nagging achilles tendon injury won't require surgery after opting to spell the representative ace indefinitely.
Troubled for several months now, Roberts aggravated the injury again when scoring a runaway intercept try during Brisbane's golden-point loss to St George Illawarra last week.
Seibold is refusing to putting a time frame on the centre's return after ruling him out of Thursday night's clash with NRL premiers the Sydney Roosters at the SCG.
"You can probably see in his performances. He's hobbled around a little bit at times and it's been challenging for him," Seibold said on Wednesday.
"He's not able to do his job during the game so if you can't do your job, I can't play you.
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"So that's where it's at with him.
"Myself and Jimmy made a decision that he's got to spend some time getting that right and that's what he'll do over the next few weeks.
"Whether that's one week, two weeks or longer, I suppose he's got to work with medical staff and when he's right with that we'll make a decision on what we do."
Seibold said Roberts' Broncos teammate Alex Glenn suffered a similar injury that lingered for three years but eventually healed itself without surgery.
He's hoping the NSW State of Origin flyer can also return to peak fitness without going under the knife.
