THE impending return of more middle-unit options has come at a good time for Warrington Wolves.

With Joe Philbin returning in contention imminently and with Gil Dudson not far behind him, head coach Daryl Powell has hinted at a period of rest for James Harrison.

The prop has been an impressive performer in the opening weeks of 2023 for The Wire despite struggling with a knee injury that has limited his training time - an issue he finally succumbed to against Hull KR on Friday night

Having sustained the injury during pre-season, the 26-year-old has had to be managed carefully and now reinforcements have arrived, Powell says the time is right for him to take himself out of the firing line.

“Jimmy’s been struggling so players coming back in next week will be a welcome relief for him. He needs a little bit of time to settle his knee down,” he said.

“He hasn’t trained really for three weeks – we’ve been taking fluid out of his knee and patching him up and he’s been battling through.

“He’s worked really hard to be on the field but there’s only so long you can do that without training. We need to look after him and that will be sooner rather than later I think.

“He can hardly push off his knee – he’s having a lot of trouble with that. He missed a bit of pre-season with it as well so we need to look after him and make sure he has a really good season.

“We’ve been pushing him pretty hard to date so we’re going to need to look after him pretty soon.”

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