YOUNG Huddersfield Giants centre Sam Wood, who played 13 games on dual-reg for Oldham in the Championship seasons of 2016 and 2017, is in Workington Town’s 19-man squad for Sunday’s clash with Roughyeds at the Vestacare Stadium (3pm).
The 21-year-old, who has recently signed a new three-year deal with the Giants, is expected to go straight into the Town side in place of centre Perry Singleton, who damaged a groin in last week’s 60-12 win over Hemel Stags.
He is the first player to join the Cumbrians following their new dual-reg agreement with Huddersfield which started this week and will run to the end of the season.
They already have a similar agreement with Leigh Centurions, who have recalled in-form forward Jack Blagbrough from his successful stint at Derwent Park because of their own problems caused by injury and suspension.
It was the loss of Blagbrough — another player who has been at Oldham on dual-reg in the past — plus injuries to Singleton, Gordon Maudling, Scott Akehurst and Caine Barnes that caused Town to move quickly in sorting out the new partnership with Giants.
Head coach Leon Pryce told the club’s website:
“We’re disappointed (to lose Blagbrough) because he’s been going really well for us.
“We’re at a key time of the season with tough matches coming up so being able to call on a wider playing group is welcome as we push for the top end of the table.”
For the fourth game in a row Oldham will be ploughing a lone furrow with no dual-reg men involved despite having a handful of senior forwards currently out through injury.
Workington’s 19-man squad is: Oliver Wilkes (capt), Jamie Doran (vice-capt), Sam Forrester, Kurt Mauldling, Elliot Miller, Tom Curwen, Stevie Scholey, Karl Olstrom, John
Patrick, Andrew Dawson, Fuifui Moimoi, Joe Hambley, Sam Wood, Carl Forber, Sean Penkywicz, Jake Moore, James Newton, Scott Rooke, Ben Morris.
Fifteen of them played against Hemel last week, the exceptions being Forrester, Curwen, Wood and Morris, the Welsh international centre or second-row who has joined Town on loan from St Helens.
Like Wood, Morris has also played a few games for Roughyeds on loan.
Roughyeds are the only League 1 side to have won at Derwent Park this season — 32-10 at the end of April — so the fifth-placed visitors will be determined to show that they are much better than that.
