Bateman out for THREE months! : Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:25 pm  

Shoulder injury re scanned and worse than first thought

Re: Bateman out for THREE months! : Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:38 pm  

Sad to hear it, but he looked crocked vs Cronulla at times. Think the rest will do him good.

Re: Bateman out for THREE months! : Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:44 pm  

Big loss but we have the depth to cope. Barring further injuries, Faz & Tomkins supported by Isa when Gildart is back. We look far stronger this season than last, looking good so far!!

[DaveO]

Re: Bateman out for THREE months! : Thu Mar 09, 2017 11:32 pm  

Looks like history is repeating itself. Last season Faz was out for weeks and when he came back he was very influential and I expect Bateman's return to chime in nicely in a similar way. Not that I wish him out injured just so this can happen of course. We will miss him as we did Faz but every cloud....

Re: Bateman out for THREE months! : Fri Mar 10, 2017 8:01 am  

That's a good point DaveO.

We'd rather have him fit but if this injury is straight forward enough to fix I don't think this break will do him any harm. He has been playing constantly since he came to Wigan with little or no off season.

The club always planned to ease him in and give him plenty of rests but I don't think they expected him to be quite as good, quite as quickly as he has been.

Re: Bateman out for THREE months! : Fri Mar 10, 2017 9:01 am  

Hope this isn't the start of a recurring problem with his shoulder (à la Mossop). Seem to recall he had a shoulder reconstruction early on in his career at the Bulls.

Still, we seem to be doing pretty good without him and Joel looks to be playing much better than last season so hope he's back OK in June to tear it up for the remainder of the season.

Re: Bateman out for THREE months! : Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:14 pm  

I'd echo what DaveO said. I'd hope we be in contention without him, a well rested and Fully fit Bateman will be very beneficial moving towards the business end of the season.