The Dragons are confident captain Gareth Widdop has not played his final match for the club after undergoing a shoulder reconstruction on Monday night.
Widdop underwent a Latarjet procedure in Melbourne, where surgeons take a piece of bone from elsewhere in the body and move it into the shoulder to make the socket deeper in the ball and socket joint.
The procedure has just a two per cent failure rate, with Dragons head of athletic performance Nathan Pickworth saying Widdop had pulled up "really well".
"We spoke to the surgeon late last night and the surgeon was really happy with how the procedure went," he said.
"From here, typically the recovery for these is about four to five months. But at this stage I think it's a bit too early to give a specific return to play time frame for Gareth.
"But I'm pretty optimistic that Gareth hasn't played his last game for the Dragons."
Widdop dislocated his shoulder for the third time in his last five matches in the win over the Broncos in Brisbane last week.
The Dragons haven't given up hope of Widdop returning before the finals, with Widdop to be released from the final two years of his contract to join English Super League club Warrington at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, it will be D-Day for Jack de Belin's bid to return to the NRL on April 15 with the Dragons forward to challenge the NRL's 'no fault' stand-down policy in the Federal Court.
The three-day hearing will determine if and when de Belin can return to playing for St George Illawarra after the NRL instituted the policy in response to a series of serious off-field incidents over the off-season.
De Belin became the first player banned under the protocols after he was charged with aggravated sexual assault in Wollongong in December.
De Belin pleaded not guilty to the charges in court in February.
The 27-year-old had initially sought an immediate injunction on the NRL's decision to stand him down, with the matter scheduled to be heard on March 14 - the day the NRL season kicked off.
De Belin decided not to proceed with that action following advice. If he is successful in court, the Dragons will immediately make him available for selection and could play as early as round six when St George Illawarra host Manly in Wollongong.
Meanwhile, the Dragons are hopeful Tyson Frizell will be able to return from his lacerated testicle against Newcastle on Sunday night.
St George Illawarra head to the Hunter to face the Knights and could have Frizell available after the representative forward missed the previous two rounds with the painful injury suffered in the Dragons' season opening loss to North Queensland.
Frizell had his first training session back with the team on Tuesday and would be a handy inclusion given de Belin's unavailability.
