Leeds Rhinos' David Fusitu'a facing another injury lay-off as heartbroken Rohan Smith provides update

Luckless Leeds Rhinos winger David Fusitu'a faces another spell on the sidelines after getting injured on his return game. Fusitu'a, whose Headingley career has been littered with injury setbacks, was forced off in the second half of the club's defeat to Huddersfield Giants.

The powerful outside back was making his first appearance of the season after surgery on a knee injury and after scoring before the break, he was forced to withdraw again. And he has now suffered a knee injury, with coach Rohan Smith's comments suggesting another spell on the sidelines is likely.

"Fus has a knee injury, it's a different knee injury on the other leg to the other one," he explained to Sky Sports. "I feel really sad for him, really heartbroken, he's put so much hard work in, he's in really good shape to come back in his first game, and getting hurt again is really sad for him."

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Harry Newman was also forced off, with a back injury resulting in Leeds losing a centre and a winger and virtually the same time. "Newman got hit in the back very early in the piece," Smith said. "He battled through with back spasms but he just wasn't able to keep going."

Huddersfield had tied the game up as they left the field but Leeds would then go on to establish a lead once again after tries through Paul Momorioski and Jarrod O'Connor. However, they would collapse and conceded 18 unanswered points, resulting in Huddersfield securing a fifth straight victory and the Rhinos coming to terms with a fourth defeat in five.

"It's heartbreaking in the end because we put a lot of good work in and for a large part we were the better team," he said. "Losing a centre and a winger, basically at the same time, made it really difficult. We had people playing out of position against a team stringing their plays together really well for a period of time.

"We probably didn't make enough of our dominance in the first half I thought, but we were in a good position at one point there, clearly."

Fusitu'a, who is off-contract at the end of the season, has made just 32 appearances for the club since his arrival at the start of the 2022 season.