Wakefield Trinity forward King could miss start of season due to ankle injury

The 24-year-old front-rower was treated on the field before being taken off by stretcher early in the second half of Trinity’s 30-4 defeat.

The incident was a blow to King and Trinity who were ravaged by injuries throughout 2019.

“It doesn’t look great,” Wakefield coach Chris Chester reported of King’s injury. “It is an ankle issue.

“I think there’s some kind of break or fracture there.

“It looks like an indentation in his leg and he wouldn’t let the medical people touch his leg.”

Trinity had just narrowed Rhinos’ lead to 10-4 when King was hurt.

Chester added: “I feel sorry for the lad because up until that point I think he was probably one of our best middles.

“He carried the ball really well and it just took the momentum out of everybody.

“At that point it was a fairly even contest.

“I thought we started the second half well, but then George went off and then we had a sin-binning and they scored three tries.”

Lee Kershaw, who grabbed Wakefield’s only touchdown, was yellow-carded for taking out Richie Myler as the Leeds man chased his own kick.

From only six points adrift at that stage, Wakefield were 24-4 behind when the winger returned.

Eleven of Trinity’s first 20 squad numbers did not play and Chester insisted: “Leeds had a very experienced, strong team on the field so I was fairly happy with the effort and the attitude of the players.

“I was obviously disappointed with the three tries we leaked when we down to 12 men, we didn’t touch the ball for seven – maybe eight – sets so we needed to be a lot better in that respect.

“But on the whole I was pleased, considering; we had young Jack Croft out on the wing and he got targeted a bit with the kicks.

“It is a good learning process for him – but it is disappointing we have lost a player so early on.”