Further injury update on Saints Regan Grace and Will Hopoate

Neither have made the 21-man squad for Thursday's game - and with Saints having a blank weekend the week after it means that their return will be pencilled in for the away game in Toulouse on 5 June. 

Hopoate has had a frustrating time since joining from the NRL, with three separate injuries keeping him out.

Grace missed the start of the campaign following bicep surgery, but then did his hamstring on his return at Whitehaven.

Woolf is confident on both players returning to strengthen the backline.

He said: "There has been some question marks with how long it has taken with Regan, and it has been a bit more of a significant injury than the one that was first diagnosed.

"It has been really important that he was given the time to get that right and we do the work to make sure he is bullet-proof before he comes back and that we are not re-injuring him.

"That would not be good for us or for him either. 

"By the time he gets back he is going to have plenty of footy ahead of him and he is going to be firing, nice and fresh and extremely confident of coming back into the group.

"He has done some training with the group  this last couple of weeks.

"He has been confident and we know that that was the right decision. I am comfortable with where he sits and what sort of impact he is going to make."

Hopoate bravely limped all the way through the game against Salford after Saints had earlier lost Jonny Lomax.

He has missed the last two matches - and is not in the squad for Thursday.

Woolf explained the once-bitten, twice shy approach.

"He has had bad luck but we have had to learn from our own errors there with his last injury being no different to the first one," he said.

"We would have had him coming back from that this week but have had to learn from our own mistakes and make sure we didn't make that twice.

"By giving him extra time he is already running full speed and doing some skills with the squad and doing some chaos type training.

"The best part of two-three weeks before he plays the next game means that he'll be in the same position as Regan. Confident and comfortable, as so are we, and with a good lead in both running wise and skills wise in being part of the squad.

"We know that by the time we throw him out there the risk of re-injury is really small and that we can be confident that we can give him the opportunity to to what he had come over to want to do. 

"He has come here to make an impact and be a real player in this team.

"It is important that we give him that opportunity - and give him the best chance to finish the year and do exactly that."