Craig Bellamy has admitted that Cameron Munster's injury is worse than first thought, and the electrifying fullback will likely be on the sidelines for the fourth week in a row when the Storm travel to Newcastle on Sunday.
Munster was withdrawn from Melbourne's Round 15 loss to the Dragons as a precaution, however the 21-year-old hasn't been able to get back onto the park as he's yet to return to full fitness.
"It's been really frustrating with Cameron's injury, we didn’t think he'd miss too much time, but it's been about three or four games now, so I think he'll be doubtful again to play for this week," Bellamy said.
"It's syndesmosis, and at the time we thought it was a fairly low grade but it appears as though it's a bit worse than what scans showed.
"He won't do too much today [during training] but we'll have a look at him on Saturday, although at this stage I wouldn’t imagine him playing."
Two players that could join Munster in the stands this weekend could be Origin stars Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk, as Bellamy is planning to rest the duo in the coming weeks.
As Melbourne are in the box seat for a top two finish, Bellamy has plans to give the veterans a rest, although he's yet to work out when that may be.
"I haven’t spoken to [Smith and Cronk] today, I think they've pulled up reasonably well [from Origin]… so I'll have a chat to them tomorrow and we'll go from there," Bellamy said.
"Whether it's this week or not, we've still got eight games to go so we'll certainly be looking at giving them a break at some stage, but when the right time is, that's pretty hard to work out.
"We'll put a few things together during our training session today and then we'll speak tomorrow and decide then."
While the Knights have only managed the one win so far this season, one of their best performances came against the Storm in Round 5, pushing Melbourne for the full 80 minutes in a tough four-point loss.
Bellamy is wary of the Knights' good record against his side in recent years, and knows they'll have to be on their game at Hunter Stadium to buck the trend this weekend.
"We haven’t got a real good record against Newcastle to be honest, they probably should have got us at the start of the year down here, and I think late last season they rolled us pretty easily too," Bellamy said.
"Even the year before that in Newcastle, we led by 10 with three to go, and at the end of the game, they were in front, so they'd be feeling reasonably confident about playing us at the moment I'd imagine."
