St Helens and Salford Red Devils stars return as key man undergoes positional switch

Champions St Helens head over to Salford today hoping to produce a better performance than they did away at Wakefield last week.

They’re chasing another win which would propel them closer to a first League Leaders’ Shield since 2019.

Kristian Woolf’s men are still without the likes of Will Hopoate, Tommy Makinson and Mark Percival so it does still leave the Champions a touch short but fortunately Morgan Knowles is back in the mix at loose-forward.

His return sees Jake Wingfield drop to the bench as Dan Norman misses out with a slight injury whilst Joey Lussick returns to his old stomping ground having played a key role in taking the Red Devils to Wembley in 2020. He starts at hooker as James Roby continues as a stand in stand-off.

Salford also welcome back a key man in Dan Sarginson. Surprisingly he doesn’t replace the absent Ryan Brierley at fullback directly.

Brierley is out through concussion protocols and is instead replaced at fullback by Deon Cross. Cross has excelled in Super League at centre since making the switch at the start of the season so it’ll be interesting to see how he goes at fullback.

Sarginson takes over his centre spot. Danny Addy is of course absent through an ACL injury in a blow for the Red Devils given his recent form.

A shock win for Salford would see them force their way back into the top six at the expense of Hull Fc who beat Toulouse on Friday night. They would also leapfrog Leeds who triumphed over Catalans yesterday with a miraculous comeback win.

Salford and Leeds do battle next week at Headingley.