City Reds v Saints: Teams
St Helens welcome back all nine of their international players as they make the short trip to take on Salford on Friday night.
Last Updated: 21/06/12 5:08pm
St Helens welcome back all nine of their international players for the short trip to Salford on Friday night.
Jonny Lomax was unable to play for the England Knights against Ireland due to a shoulder injury but has been included in interim coach Mike Rush's 19-man squad.
Second rower Jon Wilkin missed out on a place in England's final line-up to face the Exiles at Langtree Park, meaning he will be eager to press his claims for an international recall for the second match of the Origin series.
Saints have lost just two of their 10 league matches - both at the hands of Wigan - since Rush took over following the departure of Royce Simmons.
However he is wary of a Reds side who have lost just three of their eight matches at their new City of Salford Stadium.
"Salford are a good team and we always seem to struggle when we play them away from home," Rush said. "It will be a tough match for sure."
Boosted
Salford are boosted by the return of Australian stand-off Daniel Holdsworth, who missed his side's defeat at Castleford because of a family bereavement.
"If Daniel had played, we would probably have won," said Reds coach Phil Veivers.
The home side are, though, without prop Lee Jewitt due to a niggling shoulder injury but Wales prop forward Jordan James is available.
Veivers saw his troops push Saints hard for much of the opening game at Langtree Park back at the start of the season before eventually going down to a 38-10 defeat in the reverse fixture.
"They're a quality outfit," he said. "They've got strike right through from one to 17. The guys coming off the bench give them a lift.
"When we played them earlier in the year we competed really good with them for 50 minutes but James Roby stepped up to the plate and upped the tempo and blew us off the park in 15 minutes.
"That's something we've spoken about and addressed this week."
Salford: Patten, Broughton, Gleeson, Moon, Williams, Holdsworth, Smith, Gledhill, Howarth, McPherson, Ashurst, Anderson, Wild, Sidlow, Paleaaesina, James, Nero, Owen, Adamson.
St Helens: Wellens, Shenton, Soliola, Meli, Hohaia, Lomax, Perry, Roby, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Puletua, Wilkin, Flannery, Laffranchi, Flanagan, Clough, Dixon, Gaskell, Makinson, J. Jones.