Ah Van injury casts a cloud over triumph

WIDNES are hoping the broken right arm suffered by winger Patrick Ah Van isn’t the start of another run of injuries like the one they suffered in 2017.

The Vikings’ last Super League campaign was beset by injuries which meant head coach Denis Betts was often selecting his side from the bare bones of what remained of his squad.

Ah Van was amongst those who missed a large chunk of the season.

Now he’s set to be sidelined for a further 12 weeks after breaking his arm in apparently innocuous fashion in the 40-12 hammering of Catalans Dragons on Sunday.

Betts praised Ah Van’s contribution against Catalans during which he scored a try AFTER breaking his arm.

The Widnes boss even made a tongue-incheek comparison to the legendary heroics of St Helens’s Widnes-born forward Alan Prescott who famously led Great Britain to victory against Australia in Melbourne in 1958 despite breaking his arm after just four minutes.

Betts said: “Pat’s probably out for 12 weeks because he’s broken his arm and he’ll have an operation on Friday. That will set us back in a big way because he’s such a big part of our backfield. He played for about 15 or 20 minutes with a broken arm; not quite Alan Prescott but it was a big effort.

“Everybody else is fine but these are the kind of things that can creep up on you.

“If you get one this week and a couple next week and you haven’t got people coming back, it can become a problem.

“But that’s the nature of the game and we have to protect ourselves by being as healthy and as fit as possible to try to accommodate that.

“Sometimes these things are random. Pat’s broken his arm and I can’t really see it on video – it’s just a collision.

“He knew it was sore after the game and when we had it X-rayed it turned out to be a fracture.”

In terms of who takes Ah Van’s wing berth in this Sunday’s away clash against Castleford Tigers, Betts has several options at his disposal.

He added: “Olly Ashall and Ed Chamberlain have been training really well.

“Olly’s exciting and predominantly a full-back but I think we can do some work with him on the wing.

“We could change the team around again and Chris Dean or Matt Whitley could play in the centres; there’s few things we could do

“Ryan Ince would be the obvious choice to fill that hole but he’s about two or three weeks off being fit. And we’re still in the marketplace for somebody to fill a spot out there.”