DARYL Powell would not be drawn on whether or not Josh McGuire has played his last game for Warrington Wolves.

After the forward was handed a mammoth 12-game ban having been found guilty of using unacceptable language for the second time this year, the Australian’s future at the club is said to be in serious jeopardy.

However, Powell was quick to stress that McGuire retained the right to appeal the Operational Rules Tribunal’s guilty verdict and that, until that process had run its course, commenting further would be “unfair.”

When asked about McGuire in his press conference previewing Saturday’s game against Huddersfield, the Wire boss said: “I won’t comment on it – Josh has got the right to appeal so it would be unfair for me to comment on anything about it.

“I’ll just leave that as it is – he has the right to appeal and we’ll let that go through its due process. Josh will decide whether he wants to appeal – I think he’s got seven days.

“If he wanted to do it earlier then I think it would be heard on Thursday, but I’m not 100 per cent on that.

“There’s a lot of stuff out there at the moment so I won’t add fuel to any fire.

“Obviously, he’s pretty disappointed. I’ve sat down with him this morning to discuss things and I was speaking to Simon Moran (club owner) last night, who was asking how he was.

“Obviously, we want to make sure he’s okay. Kylie (Leuluai, player welfare manager) has spent a bit of time with him so he’ll continue to do that.”

As things stand currently, McGuire will be unavailable until the end of August at the very earliest depending on The Wire’s progress in the Challenge Cup.

With Matty Nicholson ruled out long-term with a finger injury, Powell admits the need for fresh bodies to be brought in has now heightened.

As of right now, however, he says no incomings are imminent as the search that started when prop Thomas Mikaele returned to Australia continues.

“We’ve been looking hard anyway for a middle unit forward, so it makes it more important,” he said.

“The boys are battling hard at the moment in the middle – Paul Vaughan did massive minutes last week and did a great job.

“We’ll keep doing that but ultimately, it’s something we need to address.

“There’s nothing close at the moment. We’ve looked at quite a few options both here and in Australia and we’ll keep doing that.”