Pereira was released from hospital last Monday night and returned to training on Monday, with the winger fairly upbeat after escaping a serious injury to his neck.

A return remains a couple of weeks away, with Pereira to be guided by pain and discomfort when determining his readiness to take the field.

"Surprisingly I'm feeling very good," Pereira said on Tuesday. "I have almost no symptoms of pain and am very fortunate to be feeling the way I'm feeling at this stage after an incident like that, I'm feeling pretty good.

"The process moving forward is basically day to day and how I feel. Once I feel like I'm good enough to play, I'll be able to play.

"There's no timetable, it's not like a broken leg where you can scan it when it's broken and scan it again when it's fixed and say 'Yes it's fixed, you can play'. It's not like that, it's more of just a how you feel thing.

"At the moment it's feeling good, but not good enough to play. The strength in my shoulder's not quite there yet, we'll sort that out first and then think about getting back."

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Many within the rugby league community were full of shock and worry after watching video of Pereira landing on his head while scoring a try during the Dragons Canterbury Cup loss to the Jets at Hensen Park.

The 26-year-old, however, was simply more concerned about whether he would be allowed to return to play later in the match.

"I was thinking how the exact same thing happened to Jason Nightingale and he played on, so I was thinking if he played on, then I've got to play on, otherwise I'm going to look like a bit of a coward.

"Then the stretcher came and I said no stretcher, if I get stretchered off, there's no way I can come back on. I got stretchered off, then I asked Pickles [Dragons head of athletic performance Nathan Pickworth] if it looked like Gypsy's [Nightingale] one.

"He said no, it looked way worse than Gypsy's one, so I was like okay, that's alright, I can rest knowing I'm not a coward."

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