Super League side suffer huge blow

Ian Watson has confirmed a huge blow for his side.

After confirming Olly Russell had suffered a hamstring injury on Sunday, he revealed that the halfback is out for two months.

He said:

“It’s going to be two months we think, eight weeks. There might be a little bit shaved off that depending on how he goes. He’s got a Grade two hamstring.

“Worse than we thought, to be fair the news we’ve had has been worse than we thought on both Ash Golding and Oliver Russell.

“Ash is a Grade three so that should potentially be a bit longer but he’s going to see the specialist in the next couple of days, because he’s actually presenting pretty well to be fair.

“He can do certain things that he shouldn’t be able to do with a grade three hammy, so we’ll see the specialist and see what comes from that.

“I’ve seen Ash in the gym and he’s doing things that you just couldn’t do with your hammy torn so we’ll see what the specialist says.

“Olly was really disappointed at first but his mindset is about getting back as quick as he can do.

“It’s huge really, we feel like we’re going in the right direction but we’re just missing some of the major players that could help us be better and turn those tight losses into wins.”

He did reveal that young Kieran Rush has a shot at replacing Russell against Catalans Dragons on Friday night:

“In Olly and Theo we’ve got young Kieran Rush and he’s probably our next closest in terms of Oliver Russell or Theo Fages type player so he could get his debut at some point.

“We’ve been waxing about how good he’s been in training and all that kind of stuff so at some point he might get his opportunity to show what he’s about. I’ll be excited to see how he goes because he’s very methodical in how he plays.

“Playing against New Zealand is no easy feat when you’ve got players the size that they’ve got running at you on the edge as well. He did pretty well and physically he’s good, defensively he puts his body in the way and he’s got a great kicking game which he showed at the World Cup whether that’s out of hand or place kicking.

“We’d be really confident at putting him in. We felt at the weekend the guys that played did reasonably well, it’ll just be the right time to kind of fit him in but he’s shown some really good signs.

“He’s got a chance of being involved because he’s been named in the squad. He’s a good kid, everyone who meets him loves him. He’s hard working, gets his head down and has a good focus.”