Castleford Tigers centre Jordan Turner is expected to require surgery on his shoulder that could see him miss the rest of the season.
Turner suffered the injury in last Friday’s Challenge Cup quarter-final defeat at Hull KR, to the same shoulder that he had an operation on in pre-season as well.
Castleford haven’t yet got a full picture of the extent of the injury but already know the outlook is grim.
“He’s going to see a second specialist on Friday,” said Tigers head coach Lee Radford. “It’s not looking good unfortunately.
“It’s going to be a long term one I think. He’s going to need an operation.
“He was in good form and he was last year’s player of the season as well, so it would be a massive blow for us moving forward.”
It’s not the only one for Castleford ahead of Thursday’s derby at Wakefield Trinity, with Bureta Faraimo also sidelined by a knee injury.
Radford said that the winger was set to be out for “six to eight weeks” with the issue, which was also picked up in that Hull KR defeat.