Warrington Wolves star suffers GRUESOME injury in St Helens Challenge Cup victory

Warrington Wolves boss Sam Burgess has revealed that Paul Vaughan returned to the field in Sunday’s Challenge Cup win against St Helens despite seeing a chunk of bone pop out of his finger minutes into the game. 

Prop Vaughan left the field just two minutes into the quarter-final tie at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Sunday afternoon having picked up the injury in his very first carry.

The extent of his issue wasn’t clear to those in the stadium, but when he made it back to the bench towards the end of the first half, the BBC’s cameras panned in on his heavily-strapped fingers.

Vaughan eventually returned to the field midway through the second half, and helped Burgess’ side into the semi-finals as they ran out 20-12 winners, setting up a last-four tie against Leigh Leopards.

‘He’s got a compound fracture in his finger… the bone came through the skin’

If you had any doubt about how tough rugby league players are, the 33-year-old’s return is all the evidence you need, especially given the detail head coach Burgess went into post-match.

He explained: “He’s got a compound fracture in his finger, and it’s not in a bad spot, but the bone came through the skin.

“He managed to get the finger (dislocation) back in himself, but the bone was sticking out.

“You’ve got to be careful with them because the possibility of infection is pretty bad, but we’ve got great medics on hand.

“They cleaned it out, stitched it up and he managed to get back on.

“I thought he was brilliant today, regardless of the bump on his hand. He got out there in the second half and got us forward when we really needed him.

“He wanted to come back on. I don’t think he wanted to come off to be honest, but it’s quite confronting seeing a bone sticking out of your hands.

“Once they’d strapped it back up and put some anaesthetic in there to take the pain away, he was good as gold.’

Warrington Wolves star suffers GRUESOME injury in St Helens Challenge Cup victory

Confirming Vaughan will now understandably spend some time on the sidelines, the Wire boss continued: “It shouldn’t be too long (out), depending on what procedure we go with.

“We think he might miss a couple of weeks, you’ve just got to be careful of opening the wound back up again.

“It’s more of a pain management thing, but once the wound heals, he should be alright and he should be good to go.”

And on other injuries, Burgess detailed: “We got a couple, I’ll probably tell you more later in the week.

“It’s not that I’m being coy about it, I just don’t want to say the wrong thing. We picked up a few bumps.”