Ex-Leeds Rhinos man's season in balance as Castleford Tigers suffer double blow before Wigan Warriors clash

Hooker Paul McShane is due to undergo surgery on a damaged arm tomorrow [Friday], while loose-forward Joe Westerman has an Achilles problem. McShane missed the 32-4 defeat at his former club Leeds Rhinos two weeks ago and Westerman limped off in the second half.

“Macca is going into hospital tomorrow for an operation to have pins and plates removed,” Tigers coach Craig Lingard said at his preview press conference this morning. “[When he’ll play again] is an open-ended question.

“The specialists aren’t sure what they are going to find until they get in there. It is a case of it might be two or three weeks or it might be season-ending. We won’t really know until he has had the operation. Obviously we are hoping for weeks rather than the season, but we are prepared for either eventuality.”

Lingard confirmed the current problem is a legacy from last year. He revealed: “When he broke his arm last year he had pins and plates inserted and something has happened at some point since then and some of the pins have come out. The bone has calcified around the pins and plates as well.

“The only reason he found out was because it started swelling, he had a bit of an infection in his arm. If it hadn’t been for that, he would probably have cracked on as normal thinking it was the usual sort of wear and tear you get through a contact sport. It’s fortunate for him he got the infection and went and had an x-ray which identified what needed to be identified.”

The news about Westerman is more encouraging and the coach is confident he is not facing a long spell out of action. “He has had a scan this week and there’s no significant damage in there,” Lingard reported. “It’s just [a matter of] managing him now and getting him back to some sort of full fitness where he can train and get through games.”

He added: “We had a week off last week which obviously helped and he’ll be off again this week which will hopefully help him get back to training next week. We are hopeful he will be available for the Hull KR game [on June 20], but we don’t want to risk him because we’ve got a week off after that one. If he needs that extended break to get him back fit and raring to go for the last part of the season, we’ll do that.”