An experienced player has hit a ‘bump in the road’ ahead of a possible St Helens recall, but another is set to return from injury in Friday’s Challenge Cup tie against Leeds Rhinos.
Former Leeds centre Konrad Hurrell won’t be available to face his former club, after being injured playing on dual-registration for Halifax Panthers in their win at York Knights last Sunday.
Saints coach Paul Wellens confirmed: “He left the field early; he has got a bit of a hamstring strain, which is a really unfortunate one. It’s looking potentially like a four-to-six week injury for Konrad, which is really disappointing.
“He has gone playing dual-reg to get some consistent game-time and that’s what he was in need of after the unfortunate injury he had last year. It’s another bump in the road for Konrad, but we’ll support him and hopefully he can get back out on the field training and back playing soon enough.”
Panthers have won their opening three Championship fixtures and Wellens revealed Hurrell was ‘definitely in consideration’ for a St Helens return. He said: “What I wasn’t in a position to do was bring him back and have him around the periphery of the squad and not playing.
“I think what was really important was Konrad kept getting minutes in his legs. He was doing that really well at Halifax. Obviously when selecting a team I have to select the players who are in there and performing well and I think young Harry Robertson has done a fantastic job, so Konrad knows he is going to have to play well to get back in the team.”
There is better news on prop Matty Lees who wasn’t risked in last Friday’s Super League defeat by Hull KR after picking up ‘a couple of knocks’ from the previous game against Wakefield Trinity. Wellens said: “If you look at the game against Hull KR, if there was any player suited to that type of game it was probably Matty Lees.
“There’s no doubt he was a big miss for us on the night and whenever he doesn’t play, but all being well he’ll return. He has trained with the squad fully today and seems to have come through really well, so it’ll be great to have him back in the side.”
The loss to the Robins ended Saints’ 100 per cent start to the campaign and Wellens reckons a Cup tie against old rivals Leeds is ‘a great thing for us’ as they bid to bounce back.
“There’s a real big-game feel about it,” he noted. “Last week gave us an indication of where we’re at, which is not quite where we want to be. However, we’re not far off and I was encouraged by a lot of the things I saw, particularly from a competitive point of view and an application point of view.
“The defensive resilience we showed in that first half, to defend for long periods, was outstanding. What we need to do is manage the game better so we don’t need to do as much of that moving forward.”
