Jack Hughes set for lengthy period on sidelines following calf injury

Leigh suffered an injury blow to Jack Hughes during their Super League Rivals Round defeat to Salford at the Leigh Sports Village. 

Hughes, 31, had been named for the first time since the side’s 38-20 defeat to Warrington at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.

He had been limited to just three appearances ahead of the home tie, coming on from the bench to make his fourth against Salford.

However, no more than two minutes later, the Great Britain international left the field with a reported calf issue and limped from the action.

Hughes was replaced by Ava Seumanufagai, with the home side going on to fall to a 22-20 defeat to Paul Rowley’s Red Devils. 

Josh Charnley opened the scoring, before Salford hit back through Ken Sio, Sam Stone and Brodie Croft for a 16-6 lead at the break.

Tom Briscoe scored the first in the second 40, with Salford prop forward Tyler Dupree extending the visitor’s lead to 22-10.

In-form winger Charnley scored his second of the fixture soon after, with his first four-pointer seeing him reach the milestone of 1,000 Super League points, to give his side some hope.

But Ben Reynolds’ effort was too late as Leigh fell to their fifth defeat of the season, while it was the fourth win for Salford in 2023.

Following the defeat, Leigh head coach Adrian Lam revealed that Hughes would be out “for a long period of time” after suffering a torn calf.

“It doesn’t look good,” Lam added.

“A step backwards”

Lam was left disappointed following the defeat, with a trip to Super League strugglers Wakefield up next before a home game with Leeds, with an international break set for the week after as England take on France in Warrington.

“I came here with the hope of a strong performance, but we made some dumb mistakes when we had the chance to build pressure,” Lam said.

“It was too easy playing against us today and we don’t want to be that club.

“I thought we were a long way off.

“We didn’t deserve to be close with some of the things we did. We lacked a lot of smarts and game sense and allowed the game to get away from us.

“There are some valuable lessons for us to learn from today.

“We weren’t connected as a group and had individuals trying to win us the game.

“I thought we have been improving every week, but today was a step backwards.”

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