York Knights have confirmed a season-ending injury for recent loan signing Matty English though head coach Mark Applegarth has appeared to confirm that the prop will stay at the club in 2027.
English, who is off-contract at Huddersfield, joined the Knights on loan last week with reports at the time from Love Rugby League stating that English’s switch was part of a permanent deal for 2027 as well.
York did not confirm that though when speaking to the media on Tuesday, Knights boss Mark Applegarth spoke about English playing in a York shirt, despite also confirming that his season is over following a training ground injury sustained last week.
As such, it would seem that English will be playing at the LNER Community Stadium in 2027, even if the club have not officially confirmed as such.
“It’s not a good one, unfortunately,” said of English’s injury, speaking in a presser shared to the club’s YouTube channel.
“We had a few concerns over him but it’s looking like an ACL injury there so I’m gutted for Matty.
“As I said, he trained fully at the start of the week and then unfortunately, with no one around him, his knee just went.
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“I feel for him but we’ll get Matty right, we’ll make sure that he’s looked after and what a boost it will be when we finally do get Matty in a York shirt.”
York Knights signing set for rehab as fresh injury update issued
Should English feature in a York shirt, it would have to be in 2027 with Applegarth confirming the inevitable with an ACL injury, that it was in fact a season-ender.
“It will be a longer term one so he won’t be back before the end of the year and the main thing is that mentally, we get Matty right.”
As for how English will rehab the injury, Applegarth confirmed that will be done at York, not Huddersfield, stating: “We’ll take care of that. Obviously, when you sign a loan agreement until the end of the year, rightly so, the responsibility to look after the player is with whoever the player gets the injury with.
“We’re grateful that Huddersfield allowed us to have Matty until the end of the year and we’ll do the right thing by Matty and the right thing by us as a club.”
Whilst English will be out for Friday’s game against Leigh, as well as the rest of the season, there are three key players who could all return for that game.
Jesse Dee is one of them after recovering from a nasty infection, with Applegarth confirming: “He’s back in full training so as long as he gets no side effects and his lungs feel okay, which they seem to be, then he’ll be in contention for Friday night.”
David Nofoaluma (HIA) and Sam Wood (sickness) are both back in contention whilst Ben Jones-Bishop (foot) has a return date confirmed too with Applegarth claiming the veteran winger should be back to face Warrington, providing his final return to play session goes fine.
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