Harry Newman featured for Hull FC on Thursday night against St Helens
Harry Newman in action for Hull FC
Brad Arthur will be more than happy to let Harry Newman stay at Hull FC for another week should he not make the cut for selection next week.
Newman joined Hull on a one-week loan earlier this week and he featured for the Black and Whites on Thursday night as the East Yorkshire club lost to St Helens at the MKM Stadium.
The loan came about after the centre lost his place in the Leeds place to Jack Bird, who has now scored three tries in three starts for the Rhinos since joining from the NRL, with his latest coming in the first half on Friday night against Huddersfield Giants.
Given the dominant nature of that 56-22 win at the Accu Stadium, Arthur will be reluctant to make changes to his side and he can be expected to stick with Ash Handley and Bird in the outside backs when Leeds host Catalans Dragons next week.
Arthur isn’t ruling anything out but if that does turn out to be case, he would be happy for the Newman to return to Hull and feature for Andy Last’s side against Castleford Tigers.
“He was good,” Arthur said, giving a verdict on the loan man’s outing against St Helens. “It was tough, he only got to do a captain’s run but he went there, he carried the ball strong and defended well.
“He was probably one of their better players and that’s exactly what we need from him. He’s had the right attitude about it and he’s just got to knuckle down, fight hard and put pressure on me.”
Asked whether Newman would return to Leeds or stay at Hull, the head coach added “I’m going to need to go through the game and it’s hard to make changes at this stage.
“I’ll go through the normal process, I’ll think about it over the weekend and make a decision on Monday. If he’s not in the team, Harry and I have already had the conversation, he wants to continue to play and I will continue to support that because he wants to push for a spot.
“There’s an option there but it’s up to Hull too. I’m not ruling him out of selection this week yet.”