Huddersfield Giants boss Luke Robinson has ruled Niall Evalds and Liam Sutcliffe out of this week’s clash with Hull KR. The Giants have been down on their luck of late with a series of injuries to key men undoubtedly contributing to their nightmare start to the campaign with the club winless and at the foot of the table.
The hope was that Evalds, who joined from KR last week, would be able to shore things up slightly moving forward but the full-back injured his foot on his debut for Huddersfield at Salford Red Devils. Evalds will now be looking at a spell of around three to four months on the sidelines and he joins a lengthy list of absentees with Zac Woolford and Adam Clune among the key man ruled out at present.
Liam Sutcliffe won’t feature this week, either, Robinson has confirmed as he attempts to shake off the foot issue he has been carrying since before the start of the new Super League season.
“Sutcliffe got injured when he came from Hull, did his Lisfranc in his foot,” Robinson said. “He came back in Malaga but we had to give him a bit of extra time off again and he’s never seemed to really recover. He’s been nursing it.
“He’s been playing in different positions and doing a job for us but it’s got to the stage where at the end of every game, he’s limping around. It’s time we gave him a rest to get it right. He needs to get it right because at the moment it’s lingering on way longer than it should be.
“Niall Evalds went off and we got the devastating news that he’ll be three to four months. It’s crazy really because he trained with us last week, Niall, and he looked brilliant. He was really looking forward to being part of the squad and then yeah, a bit devastating really, a freak accident and he’s managed to injure his foot.”
On top of that, Robinson has confirmed that Jack Murchie is a doubt, but, in a rare moment of positivity, he did express hope that Tom Burgess and Jacob Gagai could be fit enough to return for Huddersfield Giants following their respective issues.
“Burgess will potentially be back in this week after being out and his rehab looks like he could potentially return,” he added. “We’ve got Gagai who had a head knock who could return and we’ve got one or two little injuries.
“Murch is a little bit of a doubt at the moment, he’s been struggling with his knee and he’s had an injection at the beginning of the week to hopefully clear it up but we’ll make a late call on him.”
Asked if further recruitment was an option for Huddersfield, the Giants said: “When you bring players in on loan, if you a brought a prop in he pretty much does the same job at every club.
“When you bring pivots and spine members in and ask them to control a team but only for a few weeks when you have players returning, you have to weigh up salary cap restrictions, do we have the capability to bring them in and how long will they be in for. We are always looking but it makes it a little bit more difficult when they are in those positions.”
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— Huddersfield Giants 🐮🔔 (@Giantsrl) March 26, 2025
