Sharks captain Paul Gallen hopes to begin rehab on his injured right knee midway through next week after having surgery on Monday night.
Set to miss four to six weeks with a meniscus injury Gallen is patiently waiting for the swelling to subside in his knee.
"You can't do much until the stitches come out either because they restrict movement a little bit," Gallen said at NSW's unveiling of their 2016 Origin training jersey.
"Next Tuesday I'll get them out and hopefully the swelling is gone so I can get back into the rehab. I'm not so sure of the rehab process so I'll just be guided by the physios and doctors at Cronulla.
"It feels really good, it was a little bit sore on Monday when I woke up after the surgery. I went straight home, slept that night and woke up [on Tuesday] and I haven't really been off the lounge. I've been on the ice machine trying to get the swelling out of it."
Taking it upon himself to call the surgeon on Sunday evening Gallen managed to get the jump on his recovery by securing a Monday night surgery.
"I rang Dr Craig Waller myself and asked if he could do it and he could fortunately fit me in straight away. He's a great doctor and fortunately he took my call on the Sunday night, I don't think many others would," Gallen laughed.
"It was a massive bonus to get it done [quickly]. I think Michael Lichaa is due to have his done on the Thursday [a week after the Bulldogs played] so to have a lot of time to recover from it and get the swelling out of knee, I can't thank Craig enough."
