Southern Inland Rugby Union
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A CHAIN reaction could cost Leeton their star hooker Bart Challacombe before the season even starts following a bike accident on Tuesday.
Challacombe was on an early morning ride with a large group of cyclists before the accident which has left him with a injured AC joint.
The hulking hooker was unable to prevent the chain reaction reaching him after a number of the riders in the group fell.
He was seeking further medical advice to see the full extent of the injury, but fears his season could already be over.
"It's not looking good at this stage which is disappointing," Challacombe said.
"I've got an appointment with a specialist in Albury and will probably have to get some pins inserted, but I will find out a bit more this afternoon (yesterday).
"It would be nice to be playing this year but these things happen."
Challacombe hasn't given up hope on getting back on the ground in what is the Phantoms 40th season, but he will still have plenty to offer the club in his role as president.
For first year coach Liam Ward the injury hasn't come at an ideal time with Challacombe really impressing on the training paddock.
"He is going to be a massive loss as he's been involved with the club for about 17 years and is an inspirational leader and losing him is pretty sad for us, but we have a little bit of depth in the front row so hopefully we can get some young blokes to step up to the mark," Ward said.
In some good news for the Phantoms Frenchman Mathias Alard has confirmed we will return to the club, with Ward hopeful we will arrive just before the season proper starts on April 5.
The Phantoms are sending two men's teams and a women's team to the SIRU Summer of Sevens on Saturday with Ward seeing it as a perfect opportunity to break up the training routine and help establish how will make up the team to play in the 15-a-side event at Leeton on March 22.
"We've been training really, really hard and its chance to get out on the field and instead of tackling tackle bags start hitting people as we haven't done a lot with the ball we've really been concentrating on our fitness," Ward said
"We've had 12 training sessions now so we have been hitting the training paddock pretty hard and we've got a couple of young blokes come up from the under 17s last year coming up so we can have a look at them playing open style football."
Samuel Allen, Samuel Wallace and Scott Trodahl are a few that has impressed Ward in their first year of season football as believes the sevens format is a perfect way to shine.