St Helens’ Paul Wellens gives injury updates on Jack Welsby and Lewis Murphy after Hull KR ‘disappointment’

Paul Wellens has given updates on the injuries St Helens pair Jack Welsby and Lewis Murphy picked up at Hull KR on Friday night. The Saints were well beaten by the Challenge Cup finalists, losing 34-4 at Craven Park on what proved to be a costly night.

The visitors lost Welsby in the first half with a knee injury just before the break, with the full-back leaving the action shortly after Jack Broadbent’s second try of the night. Harry Robertson stepped into the fray to replace the playmaker but he was unable to prevent Mikey Lewis and Elliot Minchella from scoring in quick succession just before the break.

Murphy could be seen limping off in the second half, too, with the winger injuring himself in the act of scoring a try that was ultimately disallowed.

“He said he felt something in his knee,” Wellens said on Welsby. “When he tried to move and run it wa uncomfortable to the point where he wasn’t able to do his job properly.

“It’s disappointing and we’ll get that checked out in the week. We had young Harry on the bench who was able to cover that.”

Asked for an update on Murphy, Wellens added: “I think it was something with his quad but we’ll have to assess the extent of that.”

St Helens fall short of expectations

Murphy was St Helens’ only try scorer on what was a thoroughly miserable evening in east Hull, with the Merseyside outfit shipping six efforts and seeing their hard work over the last couple of weeks unravel.

“It was a struggle for us,” Wellens said. “The start of the game wasn’t great.

“They beat us to the punch physically, which was disappointing and on the back of that, a few things don’t go our way and we didn’t handle it like we needed to and concede a few tries which we’re naturally disappointed with because we feel like we should handle it a lot better.

“There was kind of like patches there where we didn’t handle things as well as we needed to but I thought it came off the back of not being physically where we needed to be. Also, when you’re playing against opposition like Hull KR, you need to have resilience.

“They’re always going to have periods in the game when they’re on top and periods where you have to handle the tough moments and we couldn’t do that well enough tonight.

“I was expecting a lot better, I have to be honest. We’ve had to deal with a fair bit of disruption out there tonight which hasn’t helped things.”