MIKE Cooper is Wolves’ only new injury doubt ahead of their first home game of the Super League season against Castleford Tigers tomorrow, Friday, kick off 8pm.

The England prop picked up a hand injury in Saturday’s 27-18 World Club Series win over Brisbane Broncos and head of coaching and rugby Tony Smith says he could be suffering from a small fracture.

Aside from that, Smith says he expects to name an unchanged side for the game at The Halliwell Jones Stadium.

“We’ll have to check on Mike Cooper, he’s got a little issue with his hand,” he said.

“It’s a bit swollen and there may be a small fracture but we’ll get him checked out and run the rule over him.

“We may have a forced change, otherwise it would be hard to change based on some of the performances against Brisbane.

“It was a pretty comprehensive performance in many ways. It wasn’t faultless, but in terms of effort and execution, it was very good.”

Should Cooper fail to prove his fitness in time to face the Tigers, Smith could turn to either Ben Westwood or Joe Philbin, who provided front-row options from the bench against the Broncos.

Dom Crosby missed Saturday’s game with a head injury but Smith said he should be back in contention this week.

The victory over Wayne Bennett’s side was The Wire’s first in a competitive game against Australian opposition and Smith says the players will strive to reach, and even better their excellent performance on a regular basis.

“If we could put it in a bottle and pull it out every week, it would be easy but that’s not how it is,” he said.

“We’re proud of what we did, the challenge for us is reproducing performances like that.

“We can’t expect it to happen every week, nor can I as a coach but we’re going to strive for it by all means.

“There’s areas to improve on in every game but it was a good performance. We’d like to build on it, that’s for sure but we’re coming up against a different sort of opposition.

“They’ve got a few offloads in them and a couple of half-backs that can create things if you give them time. Hopefully it will be a good game if we show the same skill levels as we did last week”

Smith also said skipper Chris Hill and utility back Stefan Ratchford have a chance of being fit for the game against Wigan on March 9, but a more realistic target for their return would be the trip to Leigh Centurions the following week.