TONY Smith says the returns of Stefan Ratchford and Toby King are “very timely” ahead of their trip to neighbours St Helens tomorrow, Friday, kick off 8pm.

Ratchford is set to make his first appearance of the season after knee surgery, while King returns after limping out of Wolves’ opening Super League game at Catalans with a hamstring strain.

Both are set to start at the Totally Wicked Stadium, with England international Ratchford slotting into the full-back role to allow Jack Johnson to replace the suspended Tom Lineham on the wing.

Lineham was hit with a two-game ban for the incident which saw him sin-binned during Thursday’s 22-8 defeat to Leigh Centurions.

King will replace Ryan Atkins in the centres after he picked up a hamstring injury of his own in training.

“It’s very timely that they are back, it’s just a shame that we’ve lost Ryan and Tommy at the same time as we’d be getting close to our preferred line-up,” Smith said.

“I was quite excited until receiving the judicial phone call about Tommy and then Ryan pulling his hamstring in training on Tuesday but I’m still looking forward to it.”

Kevin Brown is also likely to face his hometown team despite being knocked out by a high Glenn Stewart tackle at Leigh Sports Village.

The defeat left Wolves marooned at the bottom of Super League and defeat to Keiron Cunningham’s side would make this The Wire’s worst ever start to a league campaign.

Smith admits there are players whose form has not been good enough but has praised his squad for holding their hands up during review sessions this week.

“Every sportsperson will tell you that, at some stage, they go through stages that no matter how hard they try they just won’t hit the ball out of the middle so to speak,” he said.

“We have two or three players in that sort of mode at the moment, they are trying really hard but it’s just not flowing for them.

“The players are well aware of the work that needs to be done and how we need to put it into action. If it was just about wanting to do it, we would have done it but it’s more than that.

“In terms of attitude, they’ve been fantastic. They’ve been honest and have put their hands up about aspects of the game that weren’t right and they’ve needed to.

“We know there are questions being asked outside our squad but on the inside, there is no waning in what we’d like to do this year.

“When you’re down on confidence and form, the only way to get yourself out of that is to work hard and that’s the sort of attitude they have. I can’t fault them in that respect.”