The Hull FC back rower has joined St Helens on loan.
Jed Cartwright left Hull FC in sudden fashion to join St Helens.
Andy Last has revealed that Jed Cartwright’s loan move to St Helens was finalised after Hull FC’s captains run on Wednesday morning – with the interim coach planning to play the player at York Knights on Thursday night.
Hull Live reported on Thursday afternoon that the loan move progressed rapidly in the last 24 hours, but just how rapidly has now been made clear, with Last stating that the move ‘needed’ to happen for all parties.
Cartwright, whose time at Hull has been filled with various injuries, was out of contract at the end of the season, with the club opting not to renew his deal. Consequently, he has now been granted a loan move, with the Saints holding an option after a month to make that move permanent until the end of the season.
“It was a very sudden move,” Last said after Hull’s defeat at York. “It was done very, very quickly. It caught me off guard a little bit, but it was something that needed to happen. We wish Jed the best of luck.”
Clarifying the timing of the move, Last continued: “We had late changes to the team and we didn’t get the opportunity to practice as a team. We’d got our full team run done and then we had to make some changes late last night and early today with Harvey Barron coming in on the wing and then Tommy Briscoe having to move to centre and Ethan O’Neill going into that starting back row spot to put Lenny Clark on the bench. There was a little bit of disruption there, but that’s an excuse, and we need to be better than we was today.”
Pushed why Cartwright’s move was ‘needed,’ Last said: “For himself. He’s not got a contract for next year, and there’s opportunities for him to obviously get some game time at St Helens. They’ve got a option to extend that. And with Ethan coming in, Lennon Clark’s emergence, and the fact Zak Hardaker can play in that second row batch, it was the right thing for Jed and the right thing for us. It was a decision made from us all.”
Meanwhile, O’Neill – released by Leeds Rhinos to join Hull – has put pen to paper on a two-and-a-half year deal, keeping him at the club until the end of the 2028 season.
“It’s a good move for us,” Last said. “He’s a good age. He’s got good experience of Super League. He played well in his time at Leigh and then he went to Leeds and that hasn’t quite worked out for him. But he’s contributed to our group. He is versatile and it gives us a good option in that back row spot.”