Warrington coach delivers injury update ahead of Leigh cup clash as forward sidelined

Warrington Wolves are largely healthy, but have lost Jordy Crowther to a grim facial injury for at least the next four weeks, head coach Sam Burgess has confirmed.

A quarter of the way through the campaign, Wire sit top of the Super League ladder having won five of their six games – including last weekend’s 42-6 rout of Leigh Leopards.

Burgess’ side have also coasted their way into the Challenge Cup quarter-finals, with out-of-form Leigh returning to the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday afternoon for a last-eight tie.

It’s almost wholly healthy where the hosts’ squad is concerned ahead of that cup clash.

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Warrington Wolves coach delivers injury update ahead of Leigh Leopards cup clash as forward sidelined

Burgess provided an injury update in his pre-match press conference on Thursday afternoon, with a couple of key players returning in the shape of Cai Taylor-Wray – from a hamstring problem – and Kelepi Tanginoa, recovered from a groin issue.

He detailed: “They (Taylor-Wray and Tanginoa) will both return this week. It’s a good boost for the group.

“Cai’s worked hard and we’ve been cautious with him. He was available last week, but we gave him another week. He recovered really quickly early, we re-scanned him and things looked really positive.

“We’re really happy (with Tanginoa being fit) because we all feared the worst. At a push, he could probably have played last week as well. But he’s had a full week in training now and made a full recovery. He’ll be ready to go.

“Toff Sipley isn’t too far away, a week or two, Adam Holroyd is indefinite. (Arron) Lindop, we’re not going to see him in the next four or five weeks. He’s not training with the team yet, but he’s progressing well.

“Oli (Leyland) has been training with us, so he’s not far away at all. I think he’ll be ready to play in a week or two, so we’ll try and get him some game time somewhere.”

The one fresh absentee for Wire is forward Crowther, whose 200th career appearance against Leigh last weekend ended after just 16 seconds on the field, left needing surgery.

Burgess explained: “Today (Thursday) is the first day we’ve seen him this week, because he had to go in for surgery.

“He had a couple of plates put in on Sunday morning, he had a pretty bad break in his cheek. It doesn’t look very good, he looks in a bit of a bad way, but he’s dealing with it.

“He came on for 16 seconds before half-time and at half-time, we could see there was a fracture, so we took him straight off.

“Subsequently, he passed his HIA, but he obviously had a couple of fractures in is face. They (facial injuries) look terrible, but they can heal quickly, so we’d say four-to-six weeks (out).”