Leeds Rhinos man taken to hospital after horror injury in loss to St Helens
A Leeds Rhinos player was taken to hospital following this evening’s 6-0 loss to St Helens at AMT Headingley.
Potential England prop Mikolaj Oledzki went off late in the second half and coach Brad Arthur told his post-match press conference: “They’ve taken him to hospital. It doesn’t look good, he might have a fracture to his face.”
He added: “We will have to wait and see; he is pretty beat up, he is on the gas and they’ll get him up to hospital. They’ll get him looked at and see where to go from there. It could be surgery, who knows?”
Of how the injury happened, Arthur said: “He thinks he got a shoulder flush on his head, but we don’t want to be making rash statements until we’ve actually seen it. There has to be some sort of force on his head for him to have a fracture, but how it happened, I don’t know.”
Oledzki’s injury put the lid on a miserable evening for Rhinos and Arthur described Leeds’ eighth successive home loss to Saints as a “frustrating 80 minutes”. It was Leeds’ third defeat by St Helens in four meetings this year – including a Challenge Cup tie – and they slipped a place to fourth in Betfred Super League. A win for Leigh Leopards at home to leaders Hull KR on Saturday would see Leeds end the weekend in fifth.
Arthur said: “We allowed them to frustrate us and with that, everyone from one-17 was trying to come up with something special or win it on their own. We didn’t work together as a team and that led to errors because there’s lack of clarity around what you are trying to do and achieve. The harder we tried, the worse it got. We tried not as a team, we tried as individuals.”
Asked for positives, Arthur said: “We only conceded one try, but even then we should have stopped that; there wasn’t a lot of positives to take out of it. It’s not a step back, it’s a lesson for us - it’s one game. If you’re doing that two or three weeks in a row, it’s a step back. It is a lesson we need to learn from and we’d rather get those lessons now than when it really matters.”
Scrum-half Jake Connor also picked up what Arthur described as “a knock”, but the coach stated: “He should be okay.” Front-rower Tom Holroyd will be available for next Friday’s visit of bottom club Salford Red Devils after serving a one-match ban.
To add to Rhinos’ woes, they were beaten 22-20 by a Saints try and conversion on the last play of the Women’s Super League curtain-raiser, having hit back from 16-4 down. Mel Howard crossed twice, Tally Bryer scored a try and goal and Ruby Bruce also crossed for Leeds. The home side had a potential winning try ruled out by video referee Tara Jones, who retired as a Saints player at the end of last season to become a full-time match official. Ex-Rhinos player Caitlin Casey scored Saints’ last-gasp try, with Faye Gaskin landing the winning touchline goal - her second - as the hooter sounded. She also crossed twice and Dani McGifford was the other try scorer.