Jermaine McGillvary has a slight chance of making a return in Huddersfield’s Super League clash with Leigh on Friday.
The England winger was expected to miss up to six weeks of action with a quad tear and was absent from the club’s defeat to Hull last week.
However, Rick Stone confirmed that McGillvary has an outside chance of featuring in the game.
“Whether he’s ready for this week, I’d probably be surprised, to be honest,” Stone said.
“But he’s ran a couple of times now and he’s showed some good signs. He needs to run at top pace with our medical staff to see if he’ll be ready. There was a small tear in his quad that came up on the MRI. It’ll probably be cutting it fine this week I’d suggest, but if he doesn’t this week I’d like to think with a long turnaround into Wigan on the Sunday he’ll be OK to play.
Stone is also hopeful that Aaron Murphy, Leroy Cudjoe, Lee Gaskell and Dale Ferguson will be fit enough to feature in the game against the Centurions too, while Ukuma Ta’ai is set to return following suspension.
Meanwhile, Stone confirmed that Gaskell had undergone heart tests after being forced to withdraw just minutes before the game on Thursday.
Stone revealed in the aftermath of that defeat that Gaskell was suffering with heart irregularities, and the Giants chief confirmed that club had put the 26-year-old through tests to determine the issue.
“He’s had some bloods,” Stone said.
“He’s had an ECG with us before the start of the season and that was pretty clear.
“He’s going to train as normal today, he didn’t train today but we’ll find out more about him today. We’ll make a couple of decisions moving forward before the next training run on Thursday.
“I think it might be a mix of a heart murmur, maybe a little bit of anxiety. He had some sad news with a death in the family recently which he went to the funeral yesterday. That might have had a little bit of influence with what is going on. Over the next couple of days we will be better qualified to make a decision.
“We would never put Lee Gaskell in a position where he wasn’t comfortable and we weren’t comfortable with his physical condition. His welfare and safety comes first and that is paramount.
“It probably is a bit of a mental battle as well, but his ECG tests came back clear a week or two before the season started, he’s had blood tests since and a couple of other of things. If he does continue to show some signs that he’s not quite right, we’ll probably send him to see the specialist in London and make some calls.”
