{"id":508814,"date":"2026-04-02T11:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508814\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:13:11","slug":"york-knights-provides-injury-update-on-four-players-as-former-st-helens-man-in-line-for-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508814\/","title":{"rendered":"York Knights provides injury update on four players as former St Helens man in line for debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"York\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

York Knights have suffered a \u201cmassive blow\u201d with a star player set for around four weeks on the casualty list.<\/p>\n

Samoan full-back Toa Mata\u2019afa suffered a dislocated elbow during York\u2019s 26-14 home loss to Wakefield Trinity last Friday.<\/p>\n

Knights lost winger Ben Jones-Bishop to a foot injury in the same game and centre Sam Wood with a dislocated finger.<\/p>\n

In addition, half-back Danny Richardson missed the match after damaging a quad muscle in the final training session.<\/p>\n

Speaking about Mata\u2019afa at his weekly preview press conference today (Wednesday), coach Mark Applegarth insisted the injury is a setback, but \u201ccould have been worse\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt is all aligned and there\u2019s no break, which is a positive. There\u2019s obviously some ligament and other damage, as you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy own rough estimate, knowing Toa and from what we\u2019ve been told, I\u2019d say about four weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s a massive blow for us in terms of he has probably been one of the stand-out players, a real performer for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am gutted for him personally because I know he had really attacked this per-season and wanted to excel, which he is doing and I am sure he will when he\u2019s back, but it\u2019s a great opportunity form someone else to showcase their talents and show everyone what they\u2019re about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones-Bishop and Richardson are both in doubt for Saturday\u2019s visit to Huddersfield Giants and Wood has been ruled out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is settling down,\u201d Applegarth said\u00a0 of Jones-Bishop. \u201cIt\u2019s still not fully where we need it so he will be touch and go for Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some pretty bad bruising and a really nasty cut on top of his foot so we\u2019re just seeing how that settles down.<\/p>\n

\u201cDanny\u2019s also touch and go. He has done a bit of light training today, but you don\u2019t want to train him too hard and make it worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam got a compound dislocation. He has had it cleaned out and he\u2019s in a cast, I believe, for a week to let that settle down, then he should be good to go. He is a pretty tough cookie so I don\u2019t envisage that being longer than a week or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Liam Harris also on the casualty list, Paul McShane shifted into the halves last week after Richardson was ruled out.<\/p>\n

Play-maker Will Roberts joined York from St Helens in pre-season and has been featuring in the Championship for Newcastle Thunder, but is not in their initial squad to face Goole Vikings on Friday.<\/p>\n

Applegarth declined to say if he\u2019ll play for York instead, but stressed: \u201cI have watched him play for a number of years, including when he was on loan at Widnes last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a really calm head and I think we\u2019ve got a top half-back there. If we do end up playing Will, there\u2019s no doubt in our heads he will make the step up to Super League. He\u2019s a fantastic player and a fantastic kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willie Peters, Brad Arthur\u2019s Leeds Rhinos future, RTS and Rivals Round previewed \u2013 Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"York Knights have suffered a \u201cmassive blow\u201d with a star player set for around four weeks on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-508814","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\/508814","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=508814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}