The only person I can now rely on to recover the opals (4,4)

I believe the answer is:

last hope

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'the only person i can now rely on' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'recover the opals' is the wordplay.
'recover' indicates an anagram (I've seen this in other clues).
'the'+'opals'='theopals'
'theopals' with letters rearranged gives 'LAST HOPE'.

'to' acts as a link.

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I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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