Manly captain Matt Orford will put the club's long-term prospects ahead of personal ambition and step down from Sunday's big clash against the Roosters if he is not fully fit.
Orford sat out last week's win over Parramatta with a groin injury and may miss another week to make sure he is right for the Sea Eagles' run to the finals.
"The (competition) is so tight and the club is going great at the moment and there's motivation from every player to want to be part of that," Orford said.
"(But) it is up to the medical staff. If they say there's still a chance of tearing it and being out for four weeks I won't be stupid about things."
Orford has been jogging lightly at training away from team-mates and will reassess the injury at the end of the week.
"It's just about keeping things moving and hopefully by Thursday or Friday I will have a clearer indication," he said.
"I'm just trying to get a bit of volume in the legs. It wasn't too hard on them but at least I'm moving around and not feeling too bad."
"I'll have to see how I go kicking but we've got plenty of time which is the main thing at the moment."
Orford's injury could not have come at a worse time for Manly, who will be without five-eighth Jamie Lyon (knee) for up to eight weeks.
The Sea Eagles meet a Roosters side stung by consecutive defeats and at risk of dropping out of the top eight.
The first round clash between the two sides at Brookvale, won 42-0 by the Sea Eagles, has also been given plenty of airplay at Bondi this week.
"Losing two in a row they won't be too happy and 'Freddy' (Roosters coach Brad Fittler) is a fairly passionate and emotional kind of coach and he is definitely going to have these blokes right up come Sunday," Orford pointed out.
"And he will be reminding those guys about the first game they played at Brookie and touch on that."
"I'm sure its going to be a pretty brutal match."
Manly coach Des Hasler agreed.
"The worst thing for us was them losing down at Canberra (last Sunday)," he said.
"They've had two losses now and they're going to come fired up."
"They really need to win."