IT is sweet and sour news on the player front for Saints as they prepare to visit Hull FC on Saturday with ambitions of turning their fortunes around.

Paul Wellens’ men, who have lost five games on the trot and slipped to sixth in the Betfred Super League table, are set to welcome back some pack steel in the shape of Joe Bachelor and Morgan Knowles.

But they will travel without the suspended Jonny Lomax and Mark Percival, as well as Jack Welsby who is facing a long spell on the sidelines in what is the latest huge blow in a season of injury heartache for Saints.

George Delaney is also a big doubt to face a Hull side who have turned their form around of late.

Skipper Lomax (three matches) and form centre Percival (one match) have picked up bans from head-contact incidents in the 46-4 thrashing at Leigh Leopards on Friday.

With the half-back combination of Lomax and Welsby no longer available for the time being, Wellens has some decisions to make in that key area to a team’s performance.

A recall for NRL-bound Lewis Dodd could be on the cards, while Wellens has also hinted that a couple of young guns are coming into contention.

“Welsby is going to be a long-term injury. He’s probably going to be a minimum of eight weeks with a hamstring injury,” said the Saints head coach.

“Obviously that’s a huge blow for us and disappointing for Jack himself. We’ll put a programme in place to help Jack work his way back to full fitness and obviously try to find a solution for how we offset his loss.

“It’s quite ironic really. We’ve gone from the best part of 18 months pretty consistent with our halves combinations, and once we finally hope to get some of our frontline forwards back it’s the halves that are the ones that seem to miss out. So it’s a little bit frustrating, but as we always do we’ll adapt.

“We’ll have to see how Moses Mbye is. He has a knock and will train today with a view to seeing how he responds, but he’s a natural choice in the halves.

“There’s obviously Lewis Dodd who understands the way we play. I know he’s not featured in a couple of games recently but we certainly haven’t lost any confidence in what Lewis can do.

“And we have young players like Will Roberts and George Whitby who start to come into contention, given the fact we are pretty depleted in that area.

“They’re two young players that we have high hopes for and maybe at some point they’ll get an opportunity as well.”

On the positive side, Wellens added: “Tommy Makinson and Matt Whitley both had their first games back against Leigh and came through healthy, no ill effects from the injuries they had at this stage so that’s a positive for us.

“And there’s a chance Joe Bachelor and Morgan Knowles may return this week as well, which is obviously some timely relief after what seems to be players missing out each week.

“We returned Tommy and Matty last week and hopefully we get to do the same with Joe and Morgan this week.

“They’ve just got to nail one more session, our big session on Wednesday afternoon, an intensity day, which will help to give them what they need, and coming out of that we’ll know one way or another whether they are fit to play but we are confident.

“They are high-quality players who give us experience and leadership.

“They’ve played in big games, know what they look like, and bring us fresh bodies.

“Both have been somewhat frustrated sitting on the sidelines, watching the team go through a difficult period and when you are influential players like those two it doesn’t sit right with them that they’re not out there to help their teammates but they’ll get that opportunity this week hopefully and it’s a great boost not just for them two but the rest of the playing group.”

Wellens flagged that Percival would have only been 50:50 to play if he had not been suspended.

He has been troubled by an unnamed injury over the past two weeks and Wellens has said that he has been playing busted.

“The decision by the Match Review Panel has probably took that decision out of our hands. What it will do is allow the issue Percy has got some time to recover,” said Wellens.

In eight games since a poor loss at bottom club London Broncos, only once has there been more than eight points difference in the final score of a Hull FC match.

Earlier in the season they were whipping boys, but interim head coach Simon Grix has injected a more competitive streak into the playing group.

Wellens said: “I think their biggest strength and the key now is that they seem to have a collective buy-in and they all work hard for each other.

“When you have 17 players who are committed to doing that then you make yourselves very tough to beat.”

Saturday’s match kicks off at 3pm at the MKM Stadium.