Junee are hopeful Tristan Dickson will be back on deck sooner rather than later.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Dickson broke his leg in a motorbike accident late last year and is working for get back to the Diesels.
He was electrifying for the club in 2015 before heading to play Aussie rules and then switching to Kangaroos.
He leads the Diesels' off-season recruits and president Simon Vanzanten is confident he's not too far away.
"He's a work in progress with his leg," Vanzanten said.
"Hopefully we can get him right sooner rather than later.
"He's working with our physio to get back running as soon as he can."
Vanzanten expects he'll miss around the first four weeks of the season.
Another old face has returned to the club with Will Merritt a late addition to the Diesels line up for the nines.
He was with the club during their run to the 2015 grand final.
Vanzanten believes he will be a big boost especially with Simione Naiduki, who made a big impact last year, yet to return.
"We're still waiting for visas for big Simi to come back and Fale (Malase) is away at the moment," Vanzanten said.
"It was pretty good timing.
"He needs to run into a bit of nick but he's going to be very handy for us this year."
Vanzanten is hoping the pair can reunite like they did five seasons ago.
"He and Tristan played a really big part in 2015," Vanzanten said.
"They were lethal back then so hopefully when our Fijians are all here and the couple of Kiwis we've acquired we should be pretty handy when he get everyone on the field."
The Diesels went winless at the nines in Cootamundra earlier this month, but Vanzanten is confident they will offer a lot more.
They started things off with a before a 18-10 loss to eventual winners Tumut.
Vanzanten wasn't disappointed with their performances.
"We really had been struggling for numbers but since then a lot more players have come back," he said.
"We had a couple of injuries and Tumut won it and we were leading them at half-time.
"If we had Trent Schubach and Hayden Diggins there we would have beat them, let alone our Fijian boys.
"Even with Rusi (Kaliseiwaqa) we would have beat them but he was down with Riverina."
Junee tackles Cootamundra in the first round of the season on April 7.
They will trial this weekend and Vanzanten expects they will have more faces on board than what they had for the nines.