Blow for Hunslet as on-loan Batley Bulldogs player Anthony Bowman suffers broken wrist in training ahead of clash with Barrow Raiders'

On-loan Batley Bulldogs utility-player Anthony Bowman has been ruled out after suffering a fractured wrist on Tuesday in his first training session with Hunslet.

Parksiders coach Gary Thornton said: “I feel for him.

“He is only here on two weeks’ loan, he has just come back off knee surgery and he’s keen to get in the Ireland squad.

“I think he was looking to try and impress on Sunday so he could get into the Batley squad to play Swinton and impress Stuart Littler, the Ireland coach.”

Barrow are favourites to win the Betfred League One title this year, but Thornton insisted Hunslet will go into the game in high spirits after last week’s win at North Wales Crusaders and a good performance against the Cumbrians in pre-season.

“Barrow have made their intentions pretty clear with the signings they’ve been making,” Thornton said.

“They are setting their stall out and going for promotion so it’s a tough one for us, but we’ll take some heart out of the way we played against them in the warm-up game.

“I know it’s some time ago and you can’t always gauge much from it, but we’ll take some positives from the first 50-60 minutes, when we more than matched them.

“We are going into it confident, we picked up a bit last week and I was pleased to see there were some improvements from the Workington game that we’d worked on and identified.

“With us having such a truncated and very different pre-season, because of Covid, I always thought it would take us a week or three to get into the swing of things.

“This is three weeks in now, so I am expecting to see all those improvements we’ve been working on put into fruition this week.

“It’s a big game, we are really looking forward to it and it’ll be a good measure for us to see where we are.”

Matty Chrimes and Sion Jones both miss out with ankle injuries, but Niall Walker will make his first appearance since returning to the club.

Fans will be admitted to the game, but tickets must be bought in advance.

Meanwhile, Hunslet half-back Jy-Mel Coleman has joined his former club London Skolars on a two-week loan.

Thornton said: “Skolars coach Jermaine Coleman got in touch asking if his brother could help them out temporarily, as their scrum-half Mike Bishay broke a wrist at Workington on Sunday.

“The reduction in the minimum loan period from a month to a fortnight is handy and I see it as a win-win situation in many ways as Jy-Mel will get valuable game-time.

"The arrangement will help him stay match-fit.”

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