Leeds Rhinos news: length of Morgan Gannon injury layoff confirmed as replacement named v Leigh Leopards

Speaking this morning (Thursday) at his preview press conference ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Leigh Leopards, Arthur revealed Gannon has an ankle injury and will miss Rhinos’ next five games. Gannon suffered what was at first thought to be damage to a shin during last week’s defeat at St Helens.

Arthur said: “It’s a syndesmosis. We’ve got five more matches and then a week off and he will be back after that. He had a lot of shin soreness and it didn’t really present like a syndesmosis.

“At one stage I thought he maybe had a small fracture in his shin, but that’s the way it has worked out. He doesn’t need an op’, we can rehab it. He is in a boot for a couple of weeks and he’ll be right in six or seven. It’ll be five games he misses.”

Gannon has played in all but one of Rhinos’ 17 competitive matches this year and Arthur admitted his layoff is a setback. But he insisted: “It’s very hard to go through your season and not get injuries.

“It presents an opportunity for other guys. We’ve always focused on that. Injuries hurt the team, but they are more of a disappointment for the individual. He was playing some good footy, now he gets some rehab and he will be all right - he will be the fresh one on the scene at the back end of the year for us.”

The coach confirmed prop Cooper Jenkins will come back into the 17 against Leigh after being left out of the last two games. “We’ll move things around,” he added. “Cooper did a really good job for us over the last couple of weeks in reserve grade and got some good minutes, so it has come at a good time for him.”