Castleford Tigers are hopeful that winger Jason Qareqare is not out for the season with his hamstring injury, though coach Ryan Carr has urged the need for caution.
Qareqare was a surprise absentee in the weekend loss against Warrington Wolves with Carr confirming post-match that the winger may be out for the year due to his hamstring.
However, speaking to the media on Tuesday, a more positive update was shared with the Fijian international a chance of featuring in the final few rounds of the Super League season.
“We’ve got it scanned. He’s looking at probably more than a month,” Carr explained.
“It’ll be like touch and go towards the last game or two, I reckon.”
On whether there’s hope the winger plays again this season, Carr added: “Yeah, definitely. We’ve just got to be mindful of him because last year he played one game with that same hamstring and had it fully reconstructed.
“We’ve just got to make sure we do the right thing by Jason. We’ll push for it and we’ll see where we go.”
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Why Castleford Tigers were surprised at severity of Qareqare injury
Carr also confirmed that the injury happened late on in the loss to Wakefield with the severity being a surprise given that he was able to finish that game.
“It wasn’t like a big bang, he finished the game and just felt some pain there,” Carr explained.
“We treated it as precautionary and then obviously we scanned it and got a bit of a shock back, I suppose, because obviously he finished the game, so I wasn’t really thinking that it would be a bad injury.”
Tylor Sharpe debuted in Qareqare’s place and despite going down late on in the loss, the Tigers boss allayed any injury fears.
“He cramped up, the young fella,” Carr confirmed.
“Like I said, he’ll be better for that through just the experience of the game speed. It’s something, the exposure, you don’t really get exposed to. He’s good to go.”
