Paul Rowley confirms injury blows to Salford duo

Salford coach Paul Rowley has revealed that Shane Wright has suffered a season-ending injury as well as a fresh blow to England international Andy Ackers.

Australian forward Wright has undergone surgery on an ankle injury that he suffered in their 26-12 defeat at St Helens a fortnight ago.

Speaking after their 29-22 win over Hull on Sunday, Rowley confirmed that back-rower Wright will play no further part this season.

Rowley said: “Shane has broken his ankle, ripped his ligament off the bone and he’s got a syndesmosis (injury) as well. It’s an 18-week recovery.

“The injury was worse when they opened him up, its lower down so the fixings were difficult to achieve by the surgeon so its a pretty bad injury.

“He’s sadly missed. His season is done, which is really unfortunate.”

Salford lose star man Andy Ackers

The Red Devils were boosted by the return of England international Ackers for their win over Hull after completing his return to play concussion protocol.

However, Ackers left the field in the latter stages of the game with another head knock.

Rowley said: “Andy has gone off again, so we will lose him for anything up to a month which is disappointing for him and us, but his health is the most important thing so hopefully he has a quick recovery.

“We’re all good apart from Ackers, everybody came through unscathed apart from Ackers.

“When you’ve had two (concussions) in short succession it is a specialist job, a little bit like (Sione) Mata’utia at St Helens.

“Depending on how long his symptoms persist, hopefully he recovers pretty quickly, I wouldn’t want to see it didn’t look a bad one, but obviously any trauma to the head and to the brain is serious so hopefully he recovers pretty quickly and it can be the shorter of the timescale.

“If you have got to go through the specialist route, I think the best possible scenario is two weeks but the more likely one would be nearing on the four weeks but he’s made of sterner stuff so I’m hoping its nearing to the two.”

Samoa stars impress upon return

The Red Devils welcomed back Samoan representatives Tim Lafai and Ken Sio back from the treatment room in their win over Hull, with Sio scoring on his 250th career appearance.

Rowley added: “It is good to have them bodies back, they are solid figures and each one of them contributed significantly I thought and when you need 17 good players out there, I thought today we did.

“Our line-up on paper was very strong and I thought it needed to be against a resurgent Hull side that was very strong on paper as well and they put a really strong bench together, obviously targeting a second half of the halves and they put Dwyer on to bust us up around the ruck but I thought we managed it really well.

“I’m very proud of the lads today, I thought they put a good shift in and contributed to a good win.”

Paul Rowley proud of Salford’s win over Hull

He added: “I thought it was a really good game. I thought both sides scored some really well worked, high skill tries.

“I thought they defended a lot of our shapes really well and I thought there was an easier route for us to take, it just took us a little bit of time to believe in it and that was route one as always.

“We got some joy in and around the middle, I’m sure they targeted our middle as well so overall, it was a really good game of rugby and to come out on the right side of it is very pleasing.”

Next up for Salford is a clash with Hull KR at Magic Weekend on Saturday, 1:30pm kick-off.

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