{"id":369384,"date":"2025-08-24T08:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T08:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369384\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T08:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T08:58:11","slug":"hull-fc-hoping-for-two-key-injury-returns-ahead-of-tough-leeds-rhinos-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369384\/","title":{"rendered":"Hull FC hoping for two key injury returns ahead of tough Leeds Rhinos clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Cartwright on two potential Hull FC returns.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_Hull-FC-Watts.jpg\" alt=\"Hull FC's Liam Watts in action.\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Hull FC&#8217;s Liam Watts in action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Hull FC are hoping to have Sam Eseh back for next week\u2019s clash against Leeds Rhinos but are even more hopeful of Liam Watts returning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Eseh missed the St Helens clash on Friday night with a hamstring injury, while Watts failed his HIA against Leigh Leopards last week and will now look to pass the return to play protocols.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Meanwhile, John Cartwright is counting on both players being available for the Rhinos game at the MKM Stadium, especially after losing back rower Jed Cartwright to a pectoral injury inside the first five minutes of the Saints defeat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Speaking post-match, the Hull head coach said: \u201cI\u2019m hopeful Sam will be back, but I\u2019m more hopeful Liam Watts will be back. I think he\u2019ll be alright. He just needs to get through his head protocols. With Sam, we\u2019ll just have to have a good week of training and then we\u2019ll make a call on him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cIt\u2019s been difficult but we can\u2019t use injuries as an excuse. We\u2019ll dust ourselves off and we\u2019ll get ready for Leeds. It\u2019s going to be a massive occasion for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">As well as Watts and Eseh, Hull also lost John Asiata and Will Pryce to injury last week &#8211; with Cartwright giving his first reaction after confirmation was given midweek that they will miss the rest of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cIt was a tough week preparation-wise,\u201d Cartwright said. \u201cThose boys (Asiata and Pryce), they had a good opportunity against Salford to get things together and then the first half against Leigh was as good as we could possibly play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cWe finished that game well. Injuries are part of the game, but to lose those two guys for ten weeks, a week apart, and then to lose them both again on the same night ten weeks later \u2013 I thought that luck might bounce back our way tonight, but it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">However, despite the mounting injury woes, Cartwright still believes Hull\u2019s end of season is in their own hands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good turnaround this week,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019ll get three training days in and we\u2019ll be ready for next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cRegardless of what happens, I still think it\u2019s in our own hands. You win your games and that will look after itself, but it\u2019s one week at a time. We\u2019ve got a really tough one against Leeds, who got us in the last minute last time we played them, but we know we can compete with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Cartwright on two potential Hull FC returns.Hull FC&#8217;s Liam Watts in action. Hull FC are hoping to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[115424,117578,4151,6531,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-369384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-hull-fc","9":"tag-john-cartwright","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-rugby-league","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115082920286510969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}