England international Jermaine McGillvary scored Huddersfield Giants’ match-winning try against Wakefield Trinity last Friday despite a torn quad, he has revealed.
The Giants winger sustained the tear early in the match but stayed on the pitch and raced onto a kick from Danny Brough nine minutes from the end to seal a 24-16 victory in round two of the Betfred Super League. “I went for a scan last night and it’s a grade two quad tear,” McGillvary said. “I should be back within three to six weeks.
“I did the same injury last year, although not in the same place, and this doesn’t seem as bad, so I’m optimistic it will be sooner rather than later.”
“It wouldn’t have helped,” he said. “I did it about 10 minutes in. It was pretty painful but there was no-one on the bench and I thought I could still do a job rather than putting someone in a difficult position on the wing. There was no out-and-out winger.
“I’m one of the senior players so I need to set a good example, especially playing outside some young lads. I didn’t want to complain too much and whinge.
“For the try, luckily Broughy saw me when he made his break and I just ran as fast as I could. I probably wasn’t the fastest but I got there in the end.”
McGillvary, who was Super League’s leading tryscorer in 2015, is confident he will be restored to full fitness in time for England’s mid-season international against Samoa in May.
He scored tries in all four of England’s autumn internationals in 2016 and is among a 30-strong elite performance squad chosen by England coach Wayne Bennett to prepare for the Test against Samoa and the end-of-year World Cup.
“I’ll definitely be fit and available,” McGillvary said after the first of six scheduled training sessions under England assistant coaches Paul Anderson and Paul Sculthorpe at Hopwood Hall College near Manchester.
“Obviously there’s some quality wingers in here already so it’s going to be a tough ask any way. But Wayne knows that I can do, what I’m capable of.
“He took me to one side last year after a training session and said ‘I haven’t picked you on your form this year, if I had you wouldn’t be here. I picked you because I know what you can do’.
“He was brutally honest with me. He said just go out there and have fun. I think that’s what I did in the Four Nations.”