Chris Bailey and Ukuma Ta’ai have been given permission to miss the Giants’ pre-season trip to Portugal – because of the late arrival of their babies.
The duo have been allowed to spend extra time in Australia and New Zealand respectively to be at the side of their partners ahead of the new arrivals.
It was hoped the forwards had both become fathers for a second time over the Christmas period.
But that hasn’t proved to be the case and the duo have been allowed extra time to remain at ‘home’ – with the blessing of head coach Paul Anderson.
“They were both hoping to have celebrated the births before now and joined us for our pre-season trip,” said Anderson.
“Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, although there’s obviously nothing any of us can do about that.
“When I played at Bradford I was in the same boat, and I was allowed to miss a pre-season trip, so I’m not going to turn round to my players and tell them they’re going to have to miss something as special as the birth of a child.
“I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the coach who was responsible for that.
“But Chris and Ukuma still know we expect them to return to us at some stage in decent nick.
“They both trained well before returning ‘home’ and we don’t want to see that work having gone to waste.”
