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Saints lose key duo

06/10/2005

St Helens will go into their Super League grand final eliminator without Sean Long and Darren Albert.

The pair have failed to recover from cheek injuries in time to face Bradford Bulls tomorrow night, despite being included in the original 20-man Saints squad, and have been left out of Daniel Anderson's final party.

But Saints have at least been boosted by the news that stand-off Jason Hooper is fit enough to be included among the 18 after recovering from a shoulder injury.

He dislocated his shoulder last Friday against grand finalists Leeds and was initially ruled out for the rest of the season.

But with two stars already ruled out Anderson will be hopeful 28-year-old Hooper will be fit enough to play, even if he does have to put his body on the line.

"It's elimination, so there's a different mind-set and different reward," he said earlier this week after naming all three injured players in his initial squad.

"The season's finished if we don't do the job. We're well aware of that."

Great Britain scrum-half Long suffered a broken cheekbone picked up in Saints' penultimate regular season game against Wigan, while Australian international winger Albert is recovering from an identical injury suffered in the same match.

Saints captain Paul Sculthorpe and prop Mark Edmondson will also miss the game at Knowsley Road with injury.

<b>Squads for grand final eliminator:<b>

St Helens: Wellens, Gardner, Lyon, Talau, Hooper, Fozzard, Cunningham, Gilmour, Wilkin, Higham, Bennett, Mason, P. Anderson, Hardman, Roby, Fa'asavalu, V. Anderson, Graham.

Bradford: Vainikolo, Deacon, Morley, Fielden, I. Harris, Withers, Johnson, Lynch, B. Harris, L. Pryce, Peacock, Paul, Vagana, Langley, Hape, Meyers, Radford, Henderson.

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