Salford likely to hand debut to Hingano

Salford Red Devils are all set to hand new signing Ata Hingano a debut away to Leeds on Friday.

And Dec Patton could be back as Richard Marshall’s side target a third successive win to move further away from the Super League danger zone.

Salford leapfrogged Wakefield to go ninth by beating Trinity 24-14 at the AJ Bell Stadium on Friday.

Tonga international halfback Hingano, 24, who left Queensland team Mackay Cutters to sign on a deal to the end of the season, with the option to extend for a further two years, was in the 21-man squad but didn’t feature in the 17.

“It would have been a big ask for him to come off a plane and play, but we thought we would throw him in the squad,” explained Marshall of the former New Zealand Warriors and Canberra Raiders man.

Hingano will be reunited with his compatriot and old New Zealand Warriors team-mate Tui Lolohea.

They were in tandem when Tonga pushed England all the way in the 2017 World Cup semi-final in Auckland.

Halfback or hooker Patton missed the Wakefield game through having to self-isolate.

Salford were 70-18 winners at Castleford in the match before that.

Kiwi centre Krisnan Inu, back from a two-month club ban because of social-media posts earlier in the season, was the star of the show against Trinity, scoring two tries and kicking four goals to help his team fight back from being 12-0 down.

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