Hull FC are currently nursing six different injuries to key members of their first-team squad, with five of those injuries coming to forwards. The Black and Whites remain without John Asiata and Will Pryce due to hamstring injuries, while Jed Cartwright is also out with a hamstring injury and Jordan Lane to a broken arm.
Ligi Sao is out for the season with a knee injury suffered in February, with Liam Watts too suffering a major setback at training last month, injuring his knee after a troublesome calf issue. But while Sao and Watts are long-term, Hull are hoping there is light at the end of the tunnel as far as the other four players are concerned, with the side desperate for returns as they mount their play-off charge over the next three or so months.
And that charge could be boosted with some returns in the imminent future. In fact, head coach John Cartwright didn’t rule out some players returning for Saturday’s game against St Helens when speaking after last week’s defeat to Warrington Wolves.
The two players thought to be closing in first are Cartwright and Lane, with the last update prior to the Castleford Tigers game saying they were around ‘three to four weeks away.’ That would put the Saints game in reach, but if not, then the Wakefield Trinity clash a week on Thursday.
Any return would be timely boost(s) for Hull, who have fielded Ed Chamberlain and Zak Hardaker in the back row for the last ten games and are looking stretched in the edge positions.
Elsewhere, John Asiata is set to go for another scan on his hamstring early this week. First diagnosed at around ten weeks out, the plan was always to scan the loose-forward, who is already back running, on the sixth week, with the results giving a clearer picture of what stage of his rehab comes next.
The same applies for Will Pryce, who is close to another scan. He is now in the fifth week of his rehab and is understood to be making good progress. He too was diagnosed at around ten weeks out, with further updates to come later this week.
“It’s just a process,” Cartwright said in mid-June when asked about Asiata and Pryce’s progress. “They’ve got their protocols that they have to go through, but they’re getting better every week, and we’ll test them after six weeks.”
Meanwhile, Sao is also understood to be making good progress in his rehab from a serious knee injury, while the severity of Watts’ knee injury is still to come to light.