Super League star suffers horrible injury

Leigh Leopards are headed to Wembley after defeating Super League and World Champions St Helens at Warrington Wolves’ Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday in a great game.

Leigh’s performance was heroic as they hung in there after plenty of waves of pressure hit the Leopards hard repeatedly in the first half.

In the second 40, the Leopards found another level and stormed to a famous victory over the Saints and secure their first Wembley appearance since 1971.

But it would be a lie to say some big moments did go the way of the Leopards such as the Zak Hardaker try, the Sione Mata’utia yellow card, a quad injury for Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, the knee injury for Morgan Knowles and a nasty blow for Alex Walmsley but that wasn’t as bad as what Agnatius Paasi suffered.

According to Paul Wellens on Saints TV, the forward has “blown his knee to smithereens” in what seems like a horrifying injury for the prop.

He confirmed that he is set to miss “a significant period.”

He will be devastated as was the Saints boss.

“I’m obviously devastated,” Wellens said, “There was a huge prize at stake and the opportunity to go and play at Wembley does not get much bigger.

“I have been in this position before as a player when you lose a semi final and it is never nice and I am gutted.”

He then went on to explain what went wrong: “Perhaps when you look back on the game and the opportunities are very few and far between.

“It’s probably an area of our game where we need to be better: attacking the opposition’s goal line.

“In a game like that where the margins are so fine we probably need to nail one or two more of them and if you do, you are probably on the end of a different result.”

He was also disappointed with the try Saints conceded straight after halftime:

“I was disappointed with the way we conceded that try particularly given the stuff that we’ve worked on during the week in terms of how to defend that threat in particular.

“We probably clocked off a little bit there and got burned early in the second-half which in big games with the small margins make a massive difference.

“And so the way we started the, the second-half was certainly not ideal.”