Josh Hodgson's knee injury could make NRL clubs baulk at releasing their players for a proposed New Zealand-England Test next year unless they're given salary-cap relief for injured players.
Hodgson underwent surgery on his knee on Wednesday leaving the Canberra Raiders short one of their best players for most of the 2018 campaign.
Raiders chief executive Don Furner said they wanted to support the international game, but they were still hurting after losing Hodgson to a torn anterior cruciate ligament playing for England in the World Cup semi-final.
With Kurt Baptiste set to leave, the Raiders have brought in Craig Garvey and Siliva Havili to cover the hooking role, with their halves also a chance to spend time at dummy half in 2018.
New Zealand and England are set to play a Test against each other in the USA during next year's stand-alone State of Origin clash in Sydney, with the NRL having a bye on the weekend of June 24.
The Raiders would have several players in line to play in that clash, including Elliott Whitehead, Jordan Rapana and Joe Tapine.
Furner said in the future clubs could be reluctant to release their best talent for these Tests because of the injury risk involved.
"We would like to look at the terms of the game in America to see whether we could open up the conversation with the NRL about if there was to be an injury over there in one of those games could you get salary-cap relief for it," he said.
"We're happy to support the international game like all the clubs, but it does come with risks to the clubs.
"We're probably the ones that are most touchy about it ... [but] everyone's going to look at it I think.
"It's up to the NRL clubs, it's not an NRL decision, I think it's up to the clubs, because it's not an NRL game.
"But we could look at the salary cap rules around it. It's very raw with us at the moment because of Josh.
"It's worth discussing and looking at it again because there's more and more of these type of games looked at.
"We need to look at that salary-cap relief if there is a season ending injury."
Operation went really smooth, thank you for all the messages ????????
A post shared by Josh Hodgson (@joshhodgson89) on Dec 12, 2017 at 6:47pm PST
Furner said it was a "double whammy", with the Green Machine not only having to include Hodgson in next season's salary cap, but also include his replacement as well.
He expected salary-cap relief to be a hot topic ahead of 2018, with the next NRL chief executive's meeting set for February.
Some clubs could consider withholding their players, especially given the NRL season would resume just days after the game in the USA.
"It is unfair, you've got to replace the player and you get a double whammy hit," Furner said.
"Certainly in the New Year, I think other clubs will bring it up too, we'd like to at least look at it so that we make an informed decision.
"There are some conditions with regard to medical and insurance and travel, all that sort of stuff, which is great, but maybe that could be re-examined in '18 to see whether that [salary-cap relief] could be looked at because it may have a bearing on whether clubs support it or not."
Hodgson took to social media to let Raiders fans know his surgery had gone well.
He had a regular knee reconstruction, rather than the LARS, which generally has about a nine-month recovery period.
Furner said they'd booked him in as soon as they could get in once the swelling had gone down.
"Operation went really smooth, thank you for all the messages," Hodgson said on Instagram.
