Wakefield Trinity can absorb injury loss of Craig Huby, insists Chris Chester

The West Yorkshire club have only played two games so far, but have already seen two players sidelined for lengthy periods.

Prop Craig Huby, 32, is facing up to four months out after dislocating his shoulder against St Helens.

Wakefield hoped the former Castleford Tigers front-row would recover in a couple of weeks, but – nine days on from that 24-18 loss – Chester says Huby is likely to need a major operation.

“It looks like he’ll need a recon’ on that shoulder now,” he said having already lost Australian hooker Tyler Randell for two months.

“He goes to see the specialist again at the back end of this week, but it’s looking like surgery.

“That could mean three to four months out of action. We’d just got him back from a knee issue, too, and we lost him again.

“It’s hard on Chubbs (Huby) and it really hurt us that interchange as he’d only played, I think, 10 minutes.

“We lost him, but also lost Kirmo (Danny Kirmond) so that had a big effect on us at the time with the interchanges.”

Chester has front-row options for Thursday’s game against Catalans Dragons.

“We gave Keegan Hirst and Jordan Crowther a hit-out at the weekend in the reserves game and I thought both those two were excellent,” he said.

“One of those two will play this weekend as a direct replacement for Chubbs.

“Who it is yet I’m not too sure, but they both did exceptionally well in that reserve game.

“We’re fortunate in that we have some really good competition for places there.”

Second-row Kirmond came off with a slight biceps tear against St Helens and Chester added: “He’s touch and go for Catalans.

“We’ll make a call on him on Wednesday morning at the team-run, the same with James Batchelor. Pauli Pauli’s been training, but it might come a week too soon for him.

“We’ve lost Tyler and Chubbs and are down a few – but we have a big enough squad to cover those four, five blokes that could potentially be missing.”