St Helens\u2019 injury crisis has deepened once again \u2013 with centre Nene Macdonald undergoing knee surgery that could rule him out for at least the next six weeks.<\/p>\n
The Saints are without a plethora of stars for this weekend\u2019s trip to Toulouse on Friday evening. Curtis Sironen will miss the next six weeks with a calf injury suffered against Castleford Tigers, while Kyle Feldt begins a three-match suspension this weekend.<\/p>\n
And Macdonald is the latest player who has joined a growing injury list. He was missing last week with a knee problem that had been plaguing him in the early weeks of the season but now, he has been forced to go under the knife to correct the issue.<\/p>\n
That means he will be missing for at least a month, and likely longer, with assistant coach Lee Briers confirming the setback on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cNene had an operation yesterday and he\u2019s looking to be around the six-week mark. Unfortunately, he\u2019s had to have that knee operation but by all accounts, the operation was a success. Around six weeks, so we\u2019ll get him and Curtis back around the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sironen has also been ruled out for the same period after the calf problem picked up at Castleford was confirmed to be significant.<\/p>\n
Briers added: \u201cCurtis had a calf injury and I believe it\u2019s anywhere in the region of four to six weeks. The calf one is a tricky one so to put a timeframe on it would be unfair. Knowing Curtis, he\u2019ll be diligent in his rehab and make sure when he\u2019s ready, he\u2019ll tell us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Saints could hand out debuts to more academy players as they dig into their reserves this weekend, with 13 of their 21 travelling to Toulouse homegrown products.<\/p>\n
And Briers admitted that Owen Dagnall is likely the leading contender to step in and replace Feldt, having had to be patient so far in 2026 for an opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s ready to go whenever he\u2019s needed,\u201d Briers said of Dagnall. \u201cI\u2019m unsure at the moment what the starting team is going to be but he\u2019ll be there or thereabouts. He\u2019s a winger but he can fill in at centre. He\u2019s going to bring us energy and unpredictability if he gets a start.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Helens\u2019 injury crisis has deepened once again \u2013 with centre Nene Macdonald undergoing knee surgery that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-482487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}