Wakefield Trinity lose star man for 10 weeks as 3 ruled out of Catalans Dragons trip
A star Wakefield Trinity forward is facing around 10 weeks on the casualty list after being injured during last week’s derby against Castleford Tigers.
The 13-12 comeback victory, after Trinity trailed 12-0 at half-time, came at a cost with prop Ky Rodwell and second-rower Seth Nikotemo both being ruled out of Saturday’s game at Catalans Dragons.
Coach Daryl Powell confirmed Australian forward Rodwell picked up a “decent injury to his knee”, having been sidelined with hamstring damage earlier in the campaign.
“He got a sort of shunt on his lower leg which has caused a fair bit of damage in his knee,” Powell said of Rodwell. “He is likely to be out for 10ish weeks. It’s disappointing, pretty tough to take for Ky. He has already had a medium-term injury this season, then he was just getting back to feeling good about himself on the field and now he gets another big big injury, so that’s a tough one.”
The news about Nikotemo isn’t quite as serious. The second-rower, who recently made his comeback from a pre-season hand injury, was also hurt against Tigers and Powell said: “He got an injury to his ribs, which I don’t think is too bad. He popped a rib cartilage and can’t play this week, but should be available next week.”
Powell will name an initial 21-man squad at noon on Thursday, but said stand-off Jake Trueman won’t play in France. He has been battling to shake off a back injury and the coach stated: “He is looking a lot better, the way he is moving. Hopefully he will be available next week. We have got a couple of options to move the team around a bit [on Saturday], but we aren’t going to be too far off what we had last week, squad-wise.”