Manly second-rower Tom Symonds is set to miss up to six weeks of NRL action after breaking his thumb in the big win over Parramatta on Monday.

The Sea Eagles said Symonds would have surgery to insert pins into the fractured finger, ruling him out for four to six matches.

“But the upshot is that this will speed his recovery,” the club posted on its website on Wednesday.

The news was better for fellow back-rower Glenn Stewart, whom Symonds replaced after he was inadvertently poked in the eye by teammate Daly Cherry-Evans.

While the club said the extent of damage was still uncertain, he was no longer wearing an eye-patch and was likely to head to Townsville to play North Queensland on Monday.

Prop George Rose was also expected to be back on his feet in time to face the Cowboys after scans on a twisted ankle cleared him of any serious injury.

The Sea Eagles will this week be without two of their stars – Cherry-Evans (Queensland) and Anthony Watmough (NSW) – due to State of Origin duty, with Cherry-Evans to miss his first NRL match since debuting for Manly in 2011.