The Serbian had to be helped down the tunnel for medics to assess the damage with coach Steve Corica fearing the worst for his star playmaker.

But after several days of awaiting the results of scans, relieved Ninkovic was today given the all-clear, with medics ruling out any break or ligament damage.

“I feel much better today than yesterday or two days ago. Today I started to work with the ball and to be honest I feel much better,” said Ninkovic.

“I don’t know the exact injury but I was worried about it. At the moment when I felt the pain in the game I thought probably something broken because I couldn’t move my foot and that was scary to me.

“I couldn’t feel my foot. I couldn’t move, it was like a dead foot and if you have this type of feeling it’s normally something bad.

"Thank God everything is fine. I thought maybe the season wasn’t over but I would be out two or three months which is a long time.

"Now it’s just a big bruise and I think in two or three days I will be alright."

He's now expected to rejoin the rest of the squad in full training on Friday (following their Wednesday night friendly with Wollongong Wolves) after training gently by himself today.

He added: “I’ve only missed a couple of sessions and I’ll start working with the team after the Wollongong game but it’s always good to be on the pitch – better than staying with Elias (Boukarim - Head of High Performance) off the pitch."

Now Ninkovic is already looking forward to the new season after the disappointment of the 2-0 FFA Cup loss to Robbie Fowler's new-look Roar.

“It’s too early to make comparisons between this season and last season," he said today.

"But we’ve signed some very good players. We have good players no doubt about that, we just have to give 100% to win the games.”