Huddersfield’s former Australian international Luke O’Donnell is poised to end a seven-month injury lay-off in the Super League against Leeds at Headingley.
O’Donnell has not played since suffering a damaged cruciate knee ligament at St Helens last August but he has now fully recovered from surgery.
“Luke’s fit and ready to play,” said Giants coach Nathan Brown. “He’s been fit for a couple of weeks but, after such major surgery, we didn’t want to risk bringing him back in too early.
“He has looked good in training and he has shown us that the time is right to put him back in, which is obviously good news.”
Huddersfield will be without captain Kevin Brown for a month after he aggravated an ankle injury in last Sunday’s 40-22 defeat at Hull KR, but hooker Luke Robinson and forward Lee Gilmour will return on Friday and Brown has included second rower Jonny Molloy in his 19-man squad for the first time this year.
Leeds have full-back Brent Webb back after missing his side’s 46-6 defeat at St Helens through injury.