WILL Pryce has revealed the injury turmoil which blighted his final months with Huddersfield Giants and wrecked his England hopes.
The fullback or halfback left the Giants for NRL side Newcastle Knight at the end of the 2023 Betfred Super League season, having burst onto the scene with some scintilating displays as an 18-year-old two years earlier.
But a broken foot which was not detected until he joined up with the England squad for that year’s three-match series against Tonga, despite being suffered early in the second half of the infamous September 1 game away to Leigh Leopards which was halted due to floodlight failure.
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“I went to see the physio and they were saying to me at first it didn’t seem too bad and I might have twinged a ligament in my foot,” Pryce, now back in Super League with Hull FC, told The Bench podcast.
“The game got rescheduled for two days later, we had to play from the exact spot with 28 minutes on the clock with the exact same 13 on the field, so I couldn’t not play.
“I’d been icing my foot all day and I was saying ‘this is not right’ and wanted to go for a scan…but I knew something was wrong. I injected my foot and anyone who has had pain-killing injections on your foot or toes, it’s the most painful place because it’s just bone.
“I played the rest of the game and then I ended up playing six or seven games back-to-back at the end of the year where I was injecting the bottom of my foot before games and at half time.
“The physios were saying it was just ligament issues, but I knew something was wrong.”
It was only when he was still feeling pain two months later while running with his England squadmates that Pryce was sent for an MRI, CTE and x-ray on the same day, with head coach Shaun Wane delivering the bad new that he had fractured his third, fourth and fifth metatarsals.
Pryce was subsequently forced to miss the first eight weeks of pre-season training with the Knights due to the injury, compounding what had been a difficult final year at Huddersfield.
The low point came when he was chewed out in a review session after missing a crucial tackle and putting in a poor showing during the 54-0 defeat to Leeds Rhinos in Round 16 in June, and did not return to first-team until the Round 23 clash against the same opponent two months later due to injuries to other players.
The only gametime he got during that period was one reserves outing against Bradford Bulls but although frustrated by the way he was treated, Pryce bears no ill feeling towards then Giants head coach Ian Watson.
“I got openly told I wasn’t going to play because I was leaving and they wanted to focus on the team for next year,” Pryce said.
“It’s probably not the club’s fault, they wanted me to stay and wanted to re-sign me. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
“I had so much respect for Watto because he was my first Super League coach and I didn’t want to say anything. Looking back now, I probably wish I did sometimes.
“There’s no grudges with Watto. He’ll have probably been trying to do the best thing for himself and the team at the time. I feel like if he’d have played me, certain lads would have gone into his office and said ‘Why am I not playing if he’s leaving?’. I don’t hold any grudges now, I’ve moved on and it is what it is.”