North Queensland coach Paul Green is “pretty confident” Michael Morgan will return from injury next week after ruling the playmaker out of Friday night’s NRL derby against Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium.

Green said Morgan was close to running out against the Broncos after missing last week’s NRL round one win over Cronulla with an abdominal strain.

But the Cowboys mentor said it wasn’t worth risking Morgan in a round two clash.

“No, Morgo won’t play. We are pretty confident (he will play next week),” Green said.

“He was pretty close but he hadn’t improved enough so if he did play tomorrow night it would have taken him a fair while to get over the game.

“That’s the nature of the injury but at this stage we don’t want to take that risk.

“An injury like this can hang around all season – we want to avoid that if you can.”

Green was confident Te Maire Martin could again step up in the halves alongside Johnathan Thurston in Morgan’s absence after impressing last week.

“Te did a great job. It was the first time he had played alongside Johnno in the halves so that combination will get better and hopefully it does tomorrow night,” Green said.