Young Brisbane fullback Josh Hoffman has revealed he spent three weeks rehabilitating a corked shin which turned out to be a broken leg.

The Broncos' player of the year in 2010 was injured playing against the Gold Coast in the NRL's third round.

He would end sessions hobbling into the dressing room in severe pain.

But he gritted his teeth and kept training, ambitiously aiming for a possible return against the Roosters (round six) or Knights (round seven).

"It was actually a fracture of the fibula and it put me out for a while," revealed Hoffman when asked on Monday about the leg injury which has sidelined him for 10 weeks.

"In the first few weeks (of rehab) we thought it was a cork so we treated it that way.

"Apparently, I was running around on a broken leg for about three weeks so it's taken a bit longer to heal."

Hoffman, 23, had the injury re-scanned after the pain became excruciating.

After several more weeks of treatment the Mackay junior is now ready to reclaim his No.1 jumper from young gun Gerard Beale for this weekend's clash at Cronulla.

Coach Anthony Griffin is expected to shift Beale into the centres.

"The boys have had a tough few weeks and it will be good to be back and to help them out and guide them around," Hoffman said.

With resting skipper Darren Lockyer and Sam Thaiday missing, and so many young players in their backline, Brisbane's "talk" noticeably dropped off against Manly last Friday.

Hoffman's return should boost that, he's a confident communicator at the back for someone so young.

"It may be a little bit hard to get straight back into the groove of talking to the boys but once I get into it at training I'll feel more confident and comfortable doing it," he said.

Lockyer said his players had not lost confidence despite their third straight loss coming after a seven-game winning streak.

"It was a big effort to lead at half time," he told AAP.

"It was just that first 10 or 15 minutes after half time they got a couple of tries, a couple of pretty freakish ones and we couldn't recover after that.

"We've leaked a fair few points in our last two performances (67) but I don't think we've lost too much confidence.

"We have to make sure we go to Shark Park with the right attitude and we know we can turn things around."

Brisbane meanwhile confirmed utility Ben Te'o had re-fractured his forearm against Manly in his first NRL game back after first breaking his arm.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP