Paul aims to help Leeds on road to recovery

For the first time in more than a year, the game ended with the 23-year-old forward on the pitch, and more importantly, uninjured.

Since marking Leeds's return to the Premiership with three starts at the beginning of the 2009-10 campaign, the career of the academy product has been blighted by injury.

He had to watch last season's survival campaign from the stands as he nursed a shoulder injury that kept him out of the team from the middle of September.

Then after looking back to sharpness this pre-season, an ankle injury meant another month out before he finally made his first start at London Irish at the beginning of October, only for a rib injury to force him off after just 15 minutes.

It has been a similar pattern for much of his time at Leeds, with repeated injuries slowing the career of a promising player who graduated from the Kirkstall academy alongside Danny Care and Jordan Crane, players who have since gone on to pastures new and England honours.

And even as a second-half replacement in the 6-3 defeat to Sale on Friday, he was still not firing on all cylinders, but now he is at last back in the squad he is hoping for an injury-free run in the team to help his home-town club climb up the table.

"It's just been a frustrating time this last year or so but, hopefully, now the body's fit I can knuckle down and get on with it," he said.

"I couldn't believe what happened against London Irish, first start in over a year and I fell awkwardly and popped a rib cartledge.

"I was struggling to breathe. They thought I'd broken a rib but fortunately I hadn't and against Sale I had them strapped down to keep them in place and they felt fine.

"I'm raring to go now, I just need to get a bit more training under my belt.

"I've been in and out of training so far; last week I was concentrating on my tackling and I'm hoping this week I can get a full week's worth of training with the boys going into Wasps on Sunday."

Paul's bid for a first-team place is aided by his versatility. Predominently a No 8, he can also play flanker and second-row if needs be.

"It's important to have that flexibility under your belt," said Paul. "The plan is to be a major player, but there's Dan Browne, Rhys Oakley, Alfie To'oala when he comes fit all vying for the No 8 spot. It's great competition and all we can do is push each other.

"So I might be coming off the bench for the time being but I'm determined to show to the coaching staff that I can start in the Premiership."

Paul will be in contention for the starting shirt as Leeds welcome Wasps on Sunday, still in search of their first league win of the season.

Last Friday was an opportunity missed in an attritional battle with Sale at Headingley, and while Paul admits that the general feeling is Leeds are close to breaking their duck, he acknowledges that needs to be sooner rather than later.

Paul said: "It was more frustration on Friday night, it was very similar to the reaction to the Stade game with everyone saying 'we're nearly there'. But we can't keep saying 'we're nearly there', that's the frustrating part, we've proven we're good enough, we just need to go out there and turn the possession into points.

"We had quite a few boys leave and a few come in during the summer, but I think the injuries have been a major downside this season because we've not had the consistency in selection. As soon as we get that, I think we'll be all guns blazing. We're only one or two boys away from a fully fit squad and, hopefully, then we can kick on.

"For Wasps on Sunday, we have a full week to prepare and hopefully we'll beat them again after doing the double over them last season. We proved we could survive from a similar situation last season, obviously we'd rather have points on the board at this stage but there are 16 games left and a lot of points left to play for.

"What we can't keep doing is say there's 15, 14, 13 games left – the next game's the biggest game and we've got to win it."

THE England medical staff will today assess the extent of the injury sustained by Leeds flanker Hendre Fourie in the defeat to Sale. Neil Back said early signs suggested the South Africa-born No 7 had damaged his rib cartledge.