Castleford Tigers centre Jake Webster’s injury woes could be behind him after surgery on Tuesday gave him an outside chance of making it back for the start of Super League.
The former New Zealand international has long suffered with a cruciate ligament injury. He played only seven times for Castleford after joining last season, scoring four tries.
“He had an operation for the initial injury and since then he hasn’t been as fluent or as quick as we would have wanted,” said Tigers coach Daryl Powell.
“We had a specialist look at him and he decided there was something he could do to free his knee up a bit. I think there was quite a bit of scar tissue there that’s been cleaned away.
“We’ve not ruled anything out. We’ll wait and see how he does when he gets back into training.
“Hopefully this operation will have done the trick and he can start moving forward and be ready soon after the start of the season, although we are not sure exactly when.”
Powell was clear that, fully fit, the former Kiwi would be play an integral role for the Tigers in 2014.
“He’s an outstanding player, and he has been for quite a few years now. It’s all about getting him back playing well for Castleford,” he said.
“Everybody knows how good he is when he’s on the field and we’re looking forward to him playing a big part for us this year.”
