Kyle’s on rampage after Rhinos blow
HAD it not been for Covid-19, powerhouse wing Kyle Evans could have been preparing to play in his debut Super League season with Leeds Rhinos this weekend.
Instead, the 29-year-old is continuing to tear it up in the Championship with Doncaster Knights.
With three tries in his first three games, this season has started a lot better than his first at the club. He arrived from a prolific try-scoring spell at Merthyr – where he was named Welsh Premiership Player of the Year – needing surgery on a back injury. “I had a tear in my lower ab (abductor muscle). I had it for a season when I was at Merthyr and I just carried on playing with it and it was really irritating, I couldn’t get any power,” explained the 6ft, 14st 7lb (93kg) Evans.
“Knights put me through an MRI scan and I had an operation and everything went well but a week later, I started feeling unwell and I went back to hospital again, and apparently, I had internal bleeding so I was admitted for another three days and put on medication. It was a bit of a nightmare.”
Evans’ time at Castle Park could have ended prematurely, in March last year, when he was invited to trial at Rugby League giants, the Rhinos. He scored two tries in a reserve team defeat to Wigan, one a 60-metre run down the touchline and another where he took three men over the line. Those physical attributes had also seen him noticed by Hull FC in the 13-man game earlier in his career.
“I was hoping something would come of it but then Covid hit, and everything went quiet. I was a bit gutted because it was a big, big opportunity and opportunities come and go pretty fast.”
Evans knew about the fickle nature of sport from his time in Wales. Once, he was due to join the Dragons only for Bernard Jackman, the man who was going to sign him, to be sacked. A season was spent at Moseley and another four at Merthyr but now Evans, who started out in pro rugby at the Scarlets, is happy to be back in fulltime rugby again. “I wanted to get back into playing full-time professional rugby so I took the opportunity to come up here,” said the keen amateur photographer. “It was a big sacrifice because it meant I was further away from my daughter, but sometimes in life you have make sacrifices to try and push on to do well.” With Evans scoring for fun on one wing and new signing Jack Spittle doing the business on the other, Doncaster appear to have dual strike threats to complement their famed pack.
“This season, I am really excited to play. There is a new bunch of boys, 16 have come to Doncaster and they’ve been class. The coaches have been great; the standards have been driven really high under Bodes (Steve Boden, left).
“I don’t think we have gelled yet but there are glimpses of us playing amazing rugby. It’s nice to score tries off our setpiece, you don’t really see it often, do you?”