Cameron Smith is set to miss the start of the 2015 NRL season following surgery and Melbourne teammates may need to get used to the skipper's absence if coach Craig Bellamy has his way.
Smith was undergoing an operation on Tuesday after aggravating a high ankle sprain injury while leading Australia in the Four Nations tournament final loss to New Zealand.
The 31-year-old initially suffered the injury in the last game of the NRL regular season and it appeared to have cleared up after some time in a moon boot.
Bellamy said medical staff had tried to manage the injury without surgery initially but felt there was no other option.
"They've decided he certainly needs an operation on it or it's just going to cause him issues throughout the year," Bellamy told SEN radio.
The enforced lay-off which could include the first 3-4 weeks of the season should at least help Smith to pace himself through 2015.
The coach said that Smith had played more football than any other player over the past two years and he wanted the Kangaroos and Queensland captain to lighten his workload as he moved into the next stage of his career.
He said he would consider cutting Smith's regular game time from 80 minutes, but admitted his captain wouldn't be happy.
"I'd like to see him scale it back a bit, but I'm certainly not going to make him do it," Bellamy said.
"I know he won't like this - but maybe not playing the 80 minutes every week."
The Storm have a poor record without Smith on the field and fullback Billy Slater admitted his absence would be felt.
"It's a huge blow," Slater said.
"You see when we lost a guy like Cooper (Cronk) with his wrist injury this year, everyone's job becomes a little bit harder.
"Cam doesn't miss many games of football and he's quite a quick healer so hopefully he won't miss much footy."
Slater, who himself recently underwent three rounds of surgery - a shoulder reconstruction, an arthroscopy on his left elbow and laser eye treatment to restore 20/20 vision - felt that despite being off his feet for the pre-season it wouldn't take Smith long to get up to speed.
"If anyone can just pick up fitness at the drop of the hat it's Cameron Smith.
"He's naturally strong, naturally fit and if one guy was able to get through a season without a pre-season Cam would be able to do that."
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