Huddersfield boss confirms another injury blow for Jermaine McGillvary 

Huddersfield head coach Ian Watson has confirmed that winger Jermaine McGillvary will undergo scans this week after suffering a bicep injury.

The 35-year-old, who is off-contract at the end of the season, has been limited to just five appearances so far in 2023, having already also suffered with hamstring and shoulder injuries.

The Giants travel to the AJ Bell Stadium on Saturday for the Challenge Cup sixth round, and will do so without the retired 17-capped England international.

“Jermaine McGillvary is in for a scan this week,” Watson told Love Rugby League.

“It’s his bicep. He injured it a few weeks back, and then we’ve just been kind of slowly but surely [getting him back] and then he was supposed to come back in for this game, trained on the Monday and got a little knock on it and we thought we had torn his bicep.

“The first scan he’s had cleared that up, but his arm is that big at the moment, it’s not stacking up with what we’ve seen on the scan. So, we’re going to have to send him to a different scan and specialist.

“He’s in a helluva lot of pain with it, so unfortunately he can’t play this week. He’s out again, otherwise this would have been his return.

“But it wasn’t to be and it’s somebody else’s opportunity to show what they can do.”

Ian Watson welcomes back Huddersfield duo

However, Watson has named half-back Theo Fages and forward Joe Greenwood in his 21-man squad to face Paul Rowley’s Red Devils, with a 7:30pm kick-off.

The pair have been sidelined since suffering respective injuries earlier in March against Castleford.

“He should play some part, to be fair,” Watson said on Fages.

“He’s done a good bit of training. He ran at the back end of last week, but we didn’t know how he was going to respond from that.

“He’s then trained with the team in bits this week. But everything is shaping up fine.

“We’ve had scans on him and there’s nothing there anymore. He gives us a boost. He’s probably livened everyone up this week with jumping back in.

“We talked about a couple of injuries this morning and how we’ve had it pretty tough to be fair. But the guys coming back in have given us a shot of confidence in the arm.

“You look at Joe Greenwood being out for a fair while, Theo, Oliver Russell, the list goes on. We’re still picking up injuries now, Owen Trout has done his ACL. He’s doing to be out for a period of time.

“We’ve had it a little bit tough. But it is what it is. It’s rugby and what we’ve got to do is deal with it and not worry or complain about it.”

Meanwhile, the ex-Salford coach revealed that Chris McQueen has returned home to Australia for personal matters, but will return to training next week.

“He’ll be back on maybe Monday,” Watson explained.

“There’s been something that he’s discussed with us for quite a long while, you never know who you’re going to draw or where fixtures are going to be, this was even before this year. It’s one of them, but he’ll be back next week.”

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