Shaun Wane has insisted he’s ‘very chilled’ about the prospect of Jake Shorrocks playing against his own team tonight.
Shorrocks is on loan at Super League rivals Salford, and will likely line up at half-back tonight when the Red Devils travel to Wigan to face the Warriors.
Usually, clubs are hesitant to let their loanee players turn out against their parent club, but Wane has stressed that he never once considered doing that – because he wants to see first-hand how Shorrocks copes under serious pressure tonight.
“When we send a player out on loan we send them out to play and I would never say a player couldn’t play against us because we’re defeating the object of sending him out,” he said.
“I’m very chilled about it, if it burns us it burns us. I want to see how Jake goes against a decent defensive team. We’ll be putting him under pressure and we’ll see how he gets on.”
Shorrocks will deputise for Robert Lui in the halves again tonight as the Australian remains sidelined due to injury – but Wane insists Salford are much more than a one-man side.
He said: “He’s a great player but they’ve managed without him in other games and played well. In the final third they’re one of the best attacking teams in the competition. The week before (St Helens) they beat Wakefield by 30 points so when they want to play they can do.
“The manner in which they got beat at home (to St Helens last week) – having those points posted against you, I can only imagine how my team would respond to having had that happen so that’s what I’m expecting from Salford.”
