Wakefield coach Chris Chester admitted he was impressed with debutant Ryan Hampshire’s first appearance in a Trinity shirt during their Boxing Day defeat to Leeds – as they wait nervously on the severity of an injury suffered by hooker Tyler Randell.
Hampshire, who only recently signed for Trinity just before Christmas, caught the eye during their first friendly of the new season while playing at half-back.
And Chester said that with first-choice pairing Jacob Miller and Liam Finn easing their way in over pre-season, Hampshire will get further opportunities to impress there in their forthcoming friendlies, too.
Chester said: “He’s had just three weeks of training with us, so we threw him in at the deep end and in an ideal world we should have left him until a later game. But he was eager to play and he did some real good stuff in that second half; he took the line on when he needed to and came up with some nice stuff. It was a good little debut for him.
“He wants to play at half-back, and he’s going to genuinely put pressure on Finny and Milky. I’ve got to give him the best opportunity I can to play there in these friendlies; I’ll try him at fullback too but I want to be fair to the kid and give him a chance at half-back, that’s his primary position.”
Randell limped off with a knee problem in the opening stages of that defeat, in essence allowing Hampshire an extended run at half-back during the 17-10 loss.
And Chester admits while Wakefield are hopeful it isn’t too serious a setback, they will find out more over the next couple of days.
“It looks like a medial problem but we’re hopeful,” he said. “Hopefully it’s nothing too serious; he’ll get assessed on Wednesday, go for a scan and we’ll see how he is. I’m gutted for the kid because he never normally gets injured and he comes over here and gets two injuries in his last two games for the club. We’ll know over the next 48 hours what the extent of the injury is.”
