Injured Manly skipper Jamie Lyon is on track to play in Friday's sudden-death clash against North Queensland after completing a running session at Sea Eagles headquarters on Wednesday morning.

Lyon suffered a calf injury in the 25th minute of Manly's 16-10 loss to Canterbury last Friday and was unable to complete the match.

However, scans confirmed the damage was not as serious as first feared and the in-form centre is on track to make a miraculous recovery.

"He had a run today, he's obviously still a bit sore but we're pretty confident that he'll be okay for tomorrow's training session and for Friday," Manly coach Geoff Toovey said.

"It's getting better every day so we're confident that he'll be okay for Friday."

"I think he surprised himself how well it's recovering ... it's not as bad as we first thought."

Asked if he'll risk playing Lyon at less than 100 percent, Toovey replied: "It's a do-or-die match but it's not a risk thing because he's done the damage on it now.

"He can't do any more damage to it. It's just a matter of whether he can perform at a reasonable level so he can hopefully help us win the match."

Meanwhile, Toovey says the defending premiers are confident they can bounce back against the Cowboys but concedes a repeat of the error-riddled performance against the Bulldogs won't be good enough.

"We know our errors from last week - all 17 of them - and we just have to look after the ball a bit better ... you can't turn over too much ball with the likes of (Johnathan) Thurston and (Matt) Bowen in their side," he said.

"We weren't good last week in regards to ball control, we had 53 percent completions and the Cowboys completed at 90 percent (against Brisbane).

"To be competitive you at least want to be over 80 percent and hopefully we can force a few errors on them as well.

"All facets of the game we were down last week, there's no denying that, although I thought our defence was really good."