Kirke made his long-awaited return as a substitute in Rhinos' 37-24 conquering of Les Catalans Dragons in Perpignan three days ago.

It was his first rugby of any sort since he tore a hamstring scoring a first half try in the home league victory over the same opposition on February 22 and the 6ft5ins, 17.5st back-rower came through unscathed, despite the sapping heat.

Now Kirke is waiting to hear if he will be selected for Saturday's Cup showdown with St Helens.

He said: "It's really nice to be back, tiring, but nice. The good thing about the weather was that it kept my hammy warm! But it wasn't very good on my lungs.

"In the first half I was obviously blowing a little bit, but in the second half I felt a lot better.

"I got my second wind, I got into it a bit, I got into a rhythm and I felt all right, I felt pretty strong.

"It worked out all right, because we ended up with only three men on the bench with Jonesy (Jamie Jones-Buchanan) getting injured.

"That made it difficult for us, but we stuck together and toughed it out."

Kirke had a strong game as Rhinos hit back from 18-6 and 24-16 down to end Catalans' seven-game winning run.

"Personally I felt fine and I got through it A-okay," he said. "It was better than I thought it would be in a lot of respects.

"I thought I might get a bit of aching in the hamstring, but it was all right. I was a little bit nervous before I got on, I was doing a bit of pacing up and down, but that was good for me, just to keep moving.

"It keeps you ticking over and settles the nerves a little bit as well."

Kirke's lay-off saw him miss 21 consecutive games before Saturday's comeback and he admitted a return straight into Super League action was a shock.

"It has been a long time," he said. "It was against Catalans the last time I played, so it was good to get another one over on them.

"I was very surprised to come back straight into the first team.

"The reserves aren't playing at the moment so it was unfortunate that I couldn't gain any game time with them.

"All I did was train and Bluey (coach Brian McClennan) decided to put me in and I'm not going to argue with that. I suppose he wants to have as many players as possible fit for this weekend and it's good that he's shown faith in me.

"I have trained 100 per cent and that's all I could do after such a long time out. I've done everything I could, but at the end of the day it's not my say."

Kirke's return has come at the perfect time, leading into a Carnegie Challenge Cup semi-final and with the Super League play-offs looming.

"Obviously I wanted to put my hand up for this weekend," he admitted. "At the end of the day it is obviously Bluey's call.

"We've had a lot of players play well this year, but at least I am fit to play.

If I get picked I get picked and if I don't I don't and all the best to whoever does."

Saints are the country's form team, on a run of 15 straight wins.

"It's going to be a tough game," said Kirke. "They are top of the league and we are second, it couldn't get much closer in a lot of respects.

"We are both coming off decent games. They hammered Wigan, but I think it will have done us good to get a tough game in before we played them.

"It was what we needed, we needed a tough game rather than an easy one and it's never going to be an easy game away to Catalans."