SAINTS head coach Paul Wellens is confident one of his sidelined aces will be back in the fold against Castleford Tigers in Super League on Friday.

Skipper Jonny Lomax trained with the full squad this morning and is looking likely to return to the halves.

Saints were also hoping to have England international Morgan Knowles back in the mix against Cas but that is looking unlikely at this stage.

“Jonny has trained full with the squad today and Morgan Knowles has trained full with the squad this morning as well but at this stage it’s looking more likely that Jonny will play and not Morgan, but we’ll see how that progresses in the next 24 hours. Pretty confident Jonny will be back,” said Wellens.

Lomax would almost certainly go straight back in at stand-off, where the versatile Moses Mbye has been covering since Lomax broke his hand against Leeds Rhinos on May 24.

“He brings quality, big-game experience, leadership, competitiveness, all the attributes that have made him the great player he is for a long period of time,” said Wellens.

“We’ve had some decent results and performances while Jonny’s been away and that’s testament to the way the team has responded to losing the captain. But he is the captain, he’s the captain for a reason so he’s going to come back into the team.

“I’ve been really impressed with Moses and the way he’s handled slotting into that half-back position.

“He’s an experienced player, a calm head, a composed player, a leader within our group given the experience he’s got.

“And he’s a real team player too. Numerous times I’ve asked Moses to play 7, play 6, play at 9, play at 13, and he’s always happy to do what’s best for the team and the more people like that in our environment the better."

Knowles has been recovering from groin surgery and the Cas game could come too soon for him.

Wellens said: “We’re hoping Morgan will be back next week. We were hopeful for this week and we still think there may be a chance but it’s not looking that positive at this moment in time.

“What we want to do with Morgan, is to make sure that when we do get him back we get him back as the best version of himself because there’s very few forwards like him in the competition.”