Kiwis' Manu Vatuvei the only man in doubt DAVID LONG IN LONDON
Last updated 07:08 18/11/2013
MICHAEL STEELE/ Getty
INJURED: Kiwis star Manu Vatuvei.
Kiwis wing Manu Vatuvei remains the only player under an injury cloud for the weekend's Rugby League World Cup semifinal against England at Wembley Stadium.
Vatuvei, who has been nursing a sore knee for all of the tournament, strained his groin in Saturday's win over Scotland in Leeds and he remains in doubt for the upcoming game.
Kiwis manager, Tony Iro, says Sonny Bill Williams is showing no concerns from the neck injury he picked up against Scotland, which resulted in him sitting out all of the second half and has been given the all clear to play.
"There are still a few bumps and bruises and we're not going to have a field session until Tuesday," Iro said.
"Sonny Bill moved reasonably freely in the pool on Saturday in recovery, so he looks pretty good, they all got through the session OK.
"The one who we need to give a bit of time to is Manu, but that's probably going to be a day-by-day proposition at the moment and the medical staff aren't going to rush him.
"They (the medical team) will give him a couple of days off and then see how he goes on Tuesday and we'll take it from there.
"He is the one with the question mark at the moment, but I'd say everyone else will be available."
If Vatuvei is unavailable to play England Jason Nightingale, who would probably consider himself unlucky not to have played in the past couple of weeks anyway, will slot straight into the team.
However, it's by no means a given at this stage that Vatuvei is out.
"It is a slight groin strain from what I understand, but he did say he was feeling better today," he said.
"We will do a bit of a mobility stretch session with the whole team tomorrow and we'll see how he is after that."
One thing that's for certain though is that the Kiwis won't be asking tournament organisers if they can give him prednisone, the synthetic steroid they wanted to give to Thomas Leuluai that the UK Anti Doping agency banned them from using.
Leuluai had a sore groin for the first four weeks of the tour and the Kiwis wanted him to take prednisone to help his recovery, but were blocked in doing so.
Although they appealed to Drugs Free Sport NZ, the matter became irrelevant when Leuluai had to quit after playing for just three minutes against Papua New Guinea.
"This is a totally different injury," Iro said.
"Obviously the stuff with Thomas was a course of action that's regularly used in New Zealand, but that's the way the authorities have used it here, so we won't be going down that track with Manu."
Vatuvei the Only Man in Doubt - league - sport | Stuff.co.nz 
