Watch Hull KR vs St Helens (1pm), followed by Huddersfield vs Hull FC (4.15pm), and then Warrington vs Wakefield (6.30pm) live on Sky Sports Arena on Sunday
Sunday 30 August 2020 18:27, UK
A Super League triple-header returns this Sunday, with the behind-closed-doors action moving to Warrington's Halliwell Jones Stadium.
Round 10 of the 2020 season sees Hull KR face St Helens, Huddersfield play Hull FC and then Warrington play Wakefield, all live on Sky Sports Arena.
Below we take a look at some talking points ahead of all three games…
First up on Sunday is Hull KR vs St Helens, and Kristian Woolf has made three changes to his 21-man Saints squad ahead of that clash at the Halliwell Jones Stadium (1pm).
Tommy Makinson serves the first of his five-match suspension and he is replaced in the 21 by Matty Costello, who is recalled. Josh Simm is an option in the centres as the 19-year-old is named in place of Mark Percival, who misses out through injury.
Dom Peyroux is fit again and he is in for Joe Batchelor in the only other change. Regan Grace is included and could make a century of appearances for the Saints if he plays on Sunday.
"I watched Hull KR's game against Warrington and they have some really dangerous, experienced players," Woolf said this week.
"They started that game well with a lot of energy and came with an approach to play very differently. When you add all those things together, they are a dangerous team and there is no such thing as an easy footy game.
"They are certainly going to come to play and try and challenge us, and come here to win so it is going to be like every other game. We need to be right on top of what we expect them to do - they try different things like short kick-offs, a lot of offloads and ball movement.
"They also challenged Warrington when they straightened up their attack and played through the middle. They will see playing us as a real challenge."
For Hull KR, with Ben Crooks out of action until early October with a calf injury, Greg Minikin returns to the side along with Ethan Ryan.
Matthew Storton and Robbie Mullren also return to the squad after missing out on the return to action against Warrington Wolves.
"One thing I do want to make clear from our point is that we are not simply looking to get this season done and move on. We are motivated to do as well as we possibly can, to keep improving, and win as many games as we can," Hull KR head coach Tony Smith.
"Of course, it doesn't come any easier as we face St Helens this weekend, so we all know we face another huge task.
"What I will say is that I will encourage the players to go out and express themselves as they did, certainly in the first half against Warrington.
"We played some excellent rugby in that first half and it was mainly fundamental errors, such as in and around the play the ball, and our kicking game, which let us down.
"We had a good few lessons to learn from the second half but at half time I was sat with a group of players who, at that stage, truly believed they were going to go on and win.
"That desire and belief is something I am very happy to have in the team I work with and I have a lot of faith in the players.
"The reality is that we can't simply go head to head with many of the teams we face in Super League. If we do that we'll almost certainly come out on the wrong end of the results.
"We need to go out and get into the game and do things a little bit differently to disrupt our opponents and really test them out. If we can do that and cut out some of those errors, we'll give teams a good game and find some wins."
The second game on Sunday sees Huddersfield play Hull, with Simon Woolford naming Ashton Golding, Aidan Sezer and Leroy Cudjoe among his 21-man Giants squad, but confirming injuries to Ukuma Ta'ai and Jon Luke Kirby.
Woolford said: "Ukuma's got a really bad lateral ligament injury in his ankle. They're talking three or four months so there's every possibility he won't play again this year."
Kirby will also face a lengthy spell on the sidelines, facing nine months out with the forward needing an ACL operation, to be carried out on Saturday.
"Both these situations are big losses to us as Ukuma is a senior forward and young Jon would have got a good number of games given in the next couple of months given how we'd planned to rotate the squad in the short turnarounds that all clubs will face," Woolford added.
"Both injuries looked fairly innocuous at the time, particularly Jon in training, but scans and specialists have dictated the way forward."
Elsewhere this week, Hull FC's interim head coach Andy Last has described the criticism aimed towards the club following their coronavirus outbreak as "unjust".
Nine players and three Hull staff members tested positive for coronavirus earlier this month, which caused their Super League game and Challenge Cup tie - both against Castleford Tigers - to be postponed as personnel went into isolation.
Last has been forced into making five changes from the Hull squad that was named ahead of the game against Salford earlier this month, having only returned from a two-week training isolation on Tuesday.
Adam Swift is recalled to the squad having sat out the Salford game due to family reasons, while young quartet Kieran Buchanan, Jack Brown, Charlie Patterson Lund and Ben McNamara are all called up into the squad.
Jake Connor, Josh Jones, Ligi Sao, Josh Bowden, Andre Savelio, Scott Taylor and Masi Matongo are all unavailable for selection.
"I do feel it's unfair. A lot of people have jumped to assumptions and been quick to criticise when they don't know the facts," Last commented.
"As a club we made sure our environment was safe and we followed all the guidelines and protocols that have been put in place to the letter. We wanted to make sure we did everything by the book and we did, but unfortunately it still found its way in.
"The criticism and finger-pointing was a little bit unjust and uncalled for when they didn't know the full facts.
"I'm not one for reading social media but I found it a little bit disappointing that, rather than reach out to those individuals who may have been suffering with Covid symptoms, there was a bit of a blame game.
"That didn't sit well with me but we have dealt with it. We hope it's in the past and we don't have any more cases penetrating our bubble."
Sunday's third game sees Warrington welcome Wakefield, but the Wolves will entertain a Trinity squad minus impactful forward David Fifita - who, quite bizarrely, has been stood done for refusing to wear a GPS tracking devisce.
"After further discussions with the RFL and internally, we have also stood down David Fifita for the foreseeable future," Wakefield chief executive Michael Carter said.
"Part of the track and trace protocols involve the use of GPS data. David has refused to wear one in the past and, despite being told that he must wear one, didn't wear it against Catalans in the league game and removed it at half-time of the game last Saturday.
"As the person ultimately responsible for the health and well-being of every employee of the club, we must err on the side of caution and remove David from the playing bubble."
In addition, Fifita's team-mates Jay Pitts, Alex Walker and Liam Kay will also miss Sunday's game against Warrington after being told to self-isolate for 14 days.
"Despite everything that's been thrown at us over the last three weeks, including late changes in fixtures and having to stand down important members of our squad, we will be fit and ready to go on Sunday against Warrington," Carter
added.
For Warrington, prop forward Leilani Latu is named in the matchday squad for the first time and could make his debut, while Sitaleki Akauola misses the game following the birth of his first child.
Akauola's Tongan team-mate Ben Murdoch-Masila serves the first match of a two game ban with Anthony Gelling also suspended.
Toby King has set-up the most tries for Warrington so far this season, and has combined to create a vastly profitable partnership with top try scorer Tom Lineham.
"It's been good and it's good for Tommy (Lineham) as he's always getting into me about he wants to be top try-scorer," King said this week.
"We've got a little pact now where if he can be top try-scorer and I can be top for assists we'd be happy with that. It would be a good goal to get to top of the assists in Super League as it's usually just the half-backs.
"Setting them up for either Tommy or Gaz (Gareth Widdop) seems to be the way it's going at the minute but it's one of them where as long as we're scoring then I'm happy.
"I'm keeping competing with Blake (Austin) too as I've got double the amount as him at the moment and he's getting upset at training with it!
"It's all been about building combinations. Gaz has come in and I've moved from the right side to the left side. I feel we're getting better and better. We practice a lot at training with our combinations. Hopefully in the coming weeks we can really show off our attack."
