Comeback chances of Brodie Croft & Matt Frawley assessed as Leeds Rhinos prepare for Catalans Dragons
Pivots Brodie Croft and Matt Frawley are expected to be available when Leeds Rhinos take on Catalans Dragons in Perpignan on Saturday.
Stand-off Croft failed a head injury assessment during Leeds’ win at Salford Red Devils last month, automatically ruling him out of yesterday’s 38-24 defeat of Castleford Tigers. He will come back into contention once he has completed the RFL’s return to play protocol.
Scrum-half Frawley played the second half at Salford with eight stitches in a badly cut hand, but was ruled out of the derby before Saturday’s captain’s run. Coach Brad Arthur had hoped to give Frawley until after Rhinos’ final training session, but made an earlier call when a plan for him to play with a protective covering on the hand was abandoned.
Second-rower Morgan Gannon came in at stand-off in his first Betfred Super League start since 2023 and Jack Sinfield returned from a foot injury as Leeds’ number seven. Arthur said: “We trained all week with Gannon and Sinny in the halves and they did a pretty good job, for the first 60 minutes. That was Morgan Gannon’s first 80 minutes for a while and he was pretty good again.
“I think both Frawls and Crofty will be right [for the game in France]. We’ll have to go back and watch through the game and see what I want to do there.”
The coach is also hopeful second-rower James Bentley will be available this weekend, after he limped out of the closing stages of yesterday’s match and said veteran winger Ryan Hall’s substitution in the final quarter was to give replacement Alfie Edgell some game time.
He said: “I think he [Bentley] is okay, it was more precautionary. We made some changes to get some game time into other guys. The same with Hally - we had Alfie sit there a couple of weeks ago and I was unable to get him on. It’s never nice as a coach to not put players on the field, so it was a good chance for Alfie to get out there.”
Replacement prop Tom Holroyd was involved in an altercation with Tigers’ Joe Westerman in the second half of Leeds’ comprehensive win, but Arthur doesn’t expect that to be taken any further when the RFL match review panel study the game today. “He was trying to fight hard to play the ball quick,” the coach said. “He’s a big, strong man and he has earned the right a lot of times to play the ball quick and there’s a lot of spoiling tactics around him.
“He’s trying to play the ball quick and get himself released to play it. I thought it was handled pretty good by the ref, no penalty, just let it go. I thought he did a pretty good job with it.”