SAINTS’ sweet victory over Salford may be soured by another half-back injury.
Lewis Dodd, recalled to the starting team last week at Hull due to the absences of Jack Welsby (hamstring) and skipper Jonny Lomax (suspended), left the field in the 57th minute against Salford with an injury that puts him in doubt for the forthcoming Magic Weekend clash with Wigan Warriors.
“Lewis he has a bit of an army injury that we’re going to need to get scanned,” said Saints head coach Paul Wellens after a 17-16 win was secured with Moses Mbye’s drop goal in golden-point extra time.
“We think it might be ligament-type damage but we won’t know any more until we get those medical assessments.”
Saints will have an anxious wait on the availability of Morgan Knowles and Joe Batchelor, who were both shown yellow cards in the second half and the Match Review Panel will take a look at those incidents to decide whether any charges are to be brought.
Knowles went to the sin bin for a high tackle on Salford’s Joy Mellor, while Batchelor’s indiscretion was seen by the officials to be a late challenge off the ball.
“I think with the Joe Batchelor one, if anything it’s an obstruction for me – he (the Salford player) shouldn’t even be there. That’ll get looked at “I think the Morgan Knowles one looks worse than it is. Slipping to the ground, there is contact with the head but it’s not whacking him into next week, but we’ll leave it to the MRP to make what decisions they need.
“We’ll adapt accordingly if they decide to bring any charges.”
Daryl Clark passed a head injury assessment (HIA) late on, so he will be good to go against Wigan.
And although Agnatius Paasi is understood to have successfully come through his HIA, Saints came unstuck with the game’s protocols and the big prop was not allowed to return to the action.
Wellens explained: “Agnatius came off and didn’t have the instrumented mouthguard in.
“So when you leave the field, the new rules are that if you don’t have the instrumented mouthguard in then you can’t return to the field regardless of whether you’ve passed or not.
“I think he’s passed, I need to check that with the doctors, because we were looking to get him back on the field but we couldn’t because he hadn’t had the mouthguard in.
“That’s a discussion I’m going to have to have with the medical staff and Agnatius around how we can avoid that happening again. It’s an unfortunate one, particularly with where we are at.
“These rules are brought in place to force people into wearing instrumental mouthguards but I’m not sure if that is player welfare if I’m honest with you.
“We were already down to 15 fit players and if Agnatius has passed and he can go back on the field to give somebody else a lift who is perhaps playing busted or injured, we can’t because he hasn’t worn a mouthguard, it seems a bit silly to me.
“It would be quite easy to make a big headline around me slamming this, but I’m not slamming anything – it’s not player welfare, that’s all I’m saying.”
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