NRL: Anguish strikes again for Asotasi

Kiwis prop Roy Asotasi is beginning to wonder what he's done wrong.

The 24-test veteran suffered yet another season-ending injury on Saturday night, damaging the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee during South Sydney's upset 36-22 win over defending champions Manly in the National Rugby League.

The initial prognosis for a shattered Asotasi was six months on the sidelines, meaning he will miss Souths' bid for the NRL playoffs, and the end-of-season Four Nations tournament for the Kiwis in England and France.

"I'm not having the luck in the last two years, so I guess I'm going to have to start all over again," he said.

"The only good news is that I'll be all right for next year.

"The disappointment is I won't be with the boys for their march towards the finals."

Aucklander Asotasi, 27, only recently signed a two-year contract extension to his original five-year deal with the Rabbitohs that will keep him at the club until 2013.

Little has gone right for the affable front rower since he helped engineer the very public coup that saw Kiwis coach Gary Kemble ousted early last year, and replaced by the Stephen Kearney-Wayne Bennett duo.

He was heavily concussed and sidelined early in last year's centenary test against the Kangaroos in Sydney, then on the eve of the World Cup campaign he suffered a torn chest muscle which required surgery and ruled him out of the biggest day in New Zealand league history in Brisbane last November.

Sitting with his arm in a sling and on crutches due to ankle surgery, he admitted it was the lowest point of his career.

"It was pretty tough. I was in a bad place, I had surgery on the ankle and the pec injury, the season was over. You couldn't ask for anything worse," he said earlier this year.

Asotasi lost the test captaincy to Benji Marshall when he came back for the heavy Anzac test defeat against Australia in Brisbane in May, and returned to his best in recent weeks amid Souths' form revival, before it all went wrong at Brookvale Oval last night.

Souths coach Jason Taylor summed up the angst in the dressing room as Asotasi sat with ice clutched to his knee.

"He's our captain, he's such an integral part of what we're doing and his performance in the first half was what got us to victory. Then to have [the injury] happen, it really is upsetting."

- NZPA