St Helens dealt major injury blow as new signing set for extended lay-off
Paul Wellens has been dealt an early-season injury setback.
St Helens will be without new signing Lewis Murphy for the next two months after the club’s worst fears on his hamstring injury were confirmed.
Murphy left the field during his Super League debut for the Saints on Saturday, after catching the eye in their 82-0 win against Salford Red Devils.
The club sent the former Wakefield Trinity star for scans to determine the severity of the issue, and Wellens admitted on Wednesday that he will be missing for around eight weeks.
“It’s not a great result,” Wellens said.
“It’s looking like an eight-week injury for a hamstring tendon tear. As you can imagine Lewis is devastated, he was showing good signs of what he’s going to bring to the team and he’s a brilliant young man so it’s a hammer blow so early in the season.
“But like we do with our injured players we provide them with the support they need and we look forward to getting him back.”
Wellens admitted it is a major blow to lose a player of Murphy’s quality.
“Particularly for the young man himself, because there were real positive signs and then he picks up the injury so he’s naturally really deflated at the moment,” he said.
“We’ll slowly pick him up and get him running again. What we’ve seen since he’s come through the door shows he’s going to be a great asset for us.”
Wellens admitted Jon Bennison is the most likely candidate to replace Murphy, but youngster Owen Dagnall is also in contention to feature against Castleford on Saturday evening.
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