Queensland winger Darius Boyd made his first appearance at training on Thursday indicating he would be cleared to play in Wednesday night’s opening State of Origin game in Sydney.
Boyd is receiving around the clock treatment for a badly bruised ankle, suffered while playing for Newcastle in last Sunday’s NRL match against the Warriors in Auckland.
He arrived with teammates at their makeshift training field at Coolum but did not take part in the session in heavy rain.
Instead, he was put through a series of short, sharp running drills combined with push ups and appeared to move freely enough to suggest with six days up his sleeve he should play.
Bench forward Ben Te’o, who broke camp on Thursday morning to be interviewed by police in Brisbane investigating assault allegations, was back in time to take part in training.
The Queensland camp has repeatedly dismissed claims the Te’o saga is proving a distraction to their preparations.
“We’re no different to you guys (media) – we’ve got a job and our job is to play football,” said Maroons interchange forward Corey Parker.
“We can’t worry or lose any sleep over things we can’t control.”
Meanwhile, the NRL’s integrity unit earlier suspended its own investigations into assault allegations against Te’o at the request of the Queensland police after interviewing him for three hours at the Ferny Grove station north of Brisbane.
Police still have more interviews planned.
NRL chief operating officer Jim Doyle, who supervises the integrity unit, said the NRL would fully co-operate with the police investigation.
“Given that the police are assuming that (investigative) responsibility it is important that we step back for the moment and let them undertake that role,” Doyle said in a statement on Thursday.
“We will of course co-operate with their investigation.
“It would be inappropriate however for us to attempt to draw any conclusion while their investigations are ongoing.”