Penrith winger Shane Elford has been released from hospital and his injury suffered in Friday night's NRL loss to St George Illawarra is not as serious as initially feared.

The 31-year-old back was taken to Westmead Hospital after being helped off the ground after just 14 minutes of the match at CUA Stadium.

Elford was initially thought to have suffered from bleeding behind the eye, a similar injury to one suffered earlier in the year by Penrith skipper Trent Waterhouse, who was sidelined for some weeks.

The Panthers back suffered the injury as he landed head first onto the ground following a tackle by Dragons forward Justin Poore, who was subsequently placed on report for the incident.

A club spokesperson said on Saturday that Elford had been released from hospital and the main injury was reportedly a broken nose and not bleeding from behind the eye.

The injury climaxed an eventful and unhappy game for the winger.

Elford needed treatment inside the first couple of minutes and was reported for an early high tackle and also committed the error which gave St George Illawarra the possession that led to their first try.

Penrith coach Matthew Elliott was disappointed his team's sloppy display prevented them from fully challenging the ladder leading Dragons.

"I'm just disappointed that we didn't give the best account of ourselves," Elliott told reporters.

"It would have been nice to get into a humdinger of a contest and get into an arm wrestle and have some (equal) possession and see how we went.

"That's what we're disappointed about, not so much the result, but we just didn't give ourselves an opportunity to compete like we know we're capable of."

Elliott took responsibility for a second successive tardy start made by the Panthers.

"We didn't start the last match we played in very well either, so the accountability for that rests with me, so we've got to do something about it, we've got to fix that up," Elliott said.

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