Paul Wellens reveals huge boost for St Helens

St Helens have had an up and down start to the season with the highs of defeating Penrith to the lows of consecutive defeats and more misery is to be added with the latest injury news.

The Red Vee had seemingly turned a corner after their defeats to Leeds and Leigh were followed up by a win over Hull FC.

Whilst the win wasn’t outstanding in itself it was certainly a step in the right direction and clearly a huge positive for new head coach Paul Wellens.

Wellens has today confirmed though that Saints will be without Ben Davies and potentially Mark Percival for a period of time, Percival suffering the injury during what is his testimonial year.

“Ben’s gone for a scan,” Wellens revealed to the press and via Saints’ Twitter. “He’s got some ankle ligament damage which will be about five to six weeks recovery time.

“It’s unfortunate for Ben, I thought he had a fantastic game the other night and really toughed it out in difficult circumstances.

“It’s a blow for Ben but we have every confidence that he’ll work hard to get himself back fully fit.”

As for testimonial man Percival, it was revealed that the veteran has been suffering with a tight calf.

“We’re just monitoring Mark at the moment, he’s got a bit of a tight calf that he got in warm-up. It may be a case that he doesn’t play this week but we’re not completely ruling that out yet.

“We’ll give him every opportunity to make the game on Friday and should he not then he’ll almost certainly be available the next week.”

However, the club have been boosted with some much more positive news.

Speaking on Saints TV, Wellens revealed that Will Hopoate is back in training:

“Will’s back in full-training now and he’s moving really well. He’s integrated back into the team and he could have probably played last week but we took the safer option.

“Will Hopoate returning, Sione Mata’utia returning as well as Konrad Hurrell it’s a big boost for us.”