{"id":582936,"date":"2026-05-14T04:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T04:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/582936\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T04:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T04:19:16","slug":"st-helens-boss-issues-mark-percival-and-nene-macdonald-injury-latest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/582936\/","title":{"rendered":"St Helens boss issues Mark Percival and Nene MacDonald injury latest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"St\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

St Helens boss Paul Rowley has explained the latest on outside back Nene MacDonald, after he returned for just one game before being injured again.<\/p>\n

The Papua New Guinean international underwent a knee operation in March, and was sidelined for around six weeks, but his rehab has not been plain sailing by any means.<\/p>\n

Departing the field after 25 minutes in the game over Bradford Bulls, he would then not return until round 10 against York.<\/p>\n

The intial plan in that game was that he would not play the full 80 minutes, but that plan wouldn\u2019t come to fruition, with the Saints boss revealing post-match that he would have liked to have brought him off early.<\/p>\n

Rowley has now explained the situation regarding his star centre, saying: \u201cNene had quite a significant knee operation\u00a0that the return date couldn\u2019t quite be fixed\u00a0because it was how his knee and his quad responded to that trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of OK, and he was OK to play.\u00a0I guess it gave us a yardstick playing, and we got through that.\u00a0But I think the next time he plays, we\u2019ll make sure he\u2019s 100% to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a plan in place.\u00a0And I guess, again, putting him in against York\u00a0gave us some directive and direction on where we wanted to go with it.\u00a0So, yeah, it\u2019s a grey area, but we\u2019re hoping sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

There is no new timeframe regarding when we can see MacDonald back on the field.<\/p>\n

Challenge Cup reaction, new Super League head coach and major signing \u2013 Click here to watch the latest episde of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

St Helens boss issues Mark Percival latest<\/p>\n

Another man Rowley provides an update on is fellow centre Mark Percvial, who has played only three games this season.<\/p>\n

The club have kept relatively quiet regarding the homegrown talent\u2019s situation, who was said to be suffering with a hamstring injury<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

Percival last played in the hefty defeat to Hull KR back in round six, a game that saw him depart at half-time due to a knock.<\/p>\n

On the 32-year-old, the Saints head coach said: \u201cPercy\u2019s probably looking as good as he\u2019s looked for a long time.\u00a0I think if you speak to him, that\u2019s how he would describe it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like he\u2019s had a bit of a watershed moment\u00a0in terms of feeling good and all in one piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s close now for a return.\u00a0So, we\u2019ll welcome him back sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/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":"St Helens boss Paul Rowley has explained the latest on outside back Nene MacDonald, after he returned for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-582936","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\/582936","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=582936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}