St George Illawarra and Parramatta were counting the cost of Friday night's season opening NRL clash with Nathan Fien and Shane Shackleton looking at lengthy stints on the sidelines.

Fien's injury looked to be the most serious, the Dragons hooker suffering a suspected broken ankle five minutes before halftime in his side's 18-12 victory.

Fien was assisted from the field in agony after his ankle had buckled under him in a tackle.

The former Warriors rake's night turned sour after his partner had given birth to their fourth child, a boy, earlier in the day.

He was heading back to hospital, this time for x-rays to determine the extent of the damage.

The loss of Fien would be a huge blow to the Dragons, who have worked tirelessly on improving their attack over the off-season.

The 30-year-old was brought in from the Warriors mid-season last year by coach Wayne Bennett specifically to spark the Dragons' dummy half work.

It had been working a treat at parramatta Stadium and Fien laid on the Dragons' first try with a neat grubber for Ben Hornby to score.

He was inches from scoring himself when he suffered the injury.

The Dragons lost Matt Cooper (hamstring) before the match and have Neville Costigan (shoulder), Peni Tagive (knee) and Kyle Stanley (ankle) already on the sidelines.

Shackleton's first NRL match for the Eels ended in the first minute of the second half when he had to be assisted off with what looked to be a serious hamstring tear.

Parramatta had already lost centre Joel Reddy to a hamstring injury in the warm-up and he was replaced in the run-on side by Krisnan Inu.

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