Now I know he's not had a very good run of injuries but does anyone else think its strange he's been out with concussion for longer than normal - I'm not suggesting anything sinister by the way just thinking he is being given a proper chance to recover to start the M8s? I think he's a bigger miss for us than some think, he is aggressive and hits hard and runs hard which we are sorely lacking, probably why he's always out?

Best back rower at the club by a mile, but we need him on the field. I don't think we are even in the same solar system as this yet, but there comes a point at which a player in the stand is no longer a player.

He's just JJB mk 2

Its such a shame he seems to be in and out all the time and then when he does get a run of games he gets a season season ender. Still has time on his side just about but he needs some luck and we badly need him fit for more than 10-15 games a season.

people compare him to JJb but JJb had a few injuries in academy reserves then had mainly long run in team, had a few longer injuries over last 3 years but he is like 35-36. Ward is like Nigel wright (the games most expensive ever teenager) went to wigan and had injury after injury, then ended up at Huddersfield and went downhill even faster, massively talented natural gifted stand off the obvious successor to schoey as GB stand off and is career was over at around 23.
I hope stevie ward can get is career going, but another season like this one and last one and the season before, well its not good enough, hope it does not come to that but we cant carry a player who only plays 20-25% of the time.

Fairly sure ward played in the halves a lot in the academy. Not sure why we haven't tried him there, his body is clearly not up to playing in the pack.

Watkins and Ward the difference between us getting smashed by wire or keeping it close. Missing them both in defence and attack!

Stevie is a bright lad ,I think if he has yet another season like the last few he will call it a day. Lets hope not and good luck to him for an injury free 2018-19

I would rather see him move to LF and be a bit less physical.
He isn't big enough for the hits he tries to put in .seems to come off worse one or twice a season,often meaning long lay offs.

Ward's missed less games this season than Garbutt, one more than Delaney (who's gone off injured in a fair few he's played in) and 2 more than Ferres and JJB. The difference with him and Garbutt is at least when they are on the field they make a big difference as opposed to the rest who don't add much even when they are fit.

I don't disagree with re-evaluating the way Ward plays, but it would be a lot easier to cover for him if we didn't have a bunch of older players who are injury prone due to ageing as much as anything else.

Whilst I think our injury list would be better almost immediately if our forwards were younger, we need to also look at conditioning. Far too often we've had seemingly half fit players take the field, only to go off with injuries during the game. That's worse than them missing the game completely as we lose a sub, and its happened too often for it just to be bad luck.

JJB has had one serious injury this year (knee) taking him out for almost 3 months. Ward has had several different injuries the most worrying of which is recurring concussion. Maybe he could solve our centre problem where he would be more effective and less at risk to head injuries and our defence out wide will improve.

On a more general note about conditioning...Across superleague there has been lots of injuries, a large number being knees and ankles. Is there a general "over-conditioning" of players. I dont know the first thing about muscles and joints etc. But is it a problem, or coincidence?

The ground's been hard this year, which must surely add to or exacerbate joint and ground impact injuries.

Yes, and we all know how much Leeds prefer wet conditions for the big games too - I'm surprised no-one has trotted out this as an excuse for how poor we've been this year