SAINTS prop Matty Lees is fit to play at Leeds on Sunday after the COVID test he took at the weekend came back negative.

The Super League Young Player of the Year was forced to miss the re-start match against Catalans at Headingley last week after reporting a sore throat.

As this is one of the issues that has to be reported as part of the matchday protocols, he was withdrawn as a precautionary measure.

Saints coach Kristian Woolf explained: “In normal times Matty would have played - it was just a sore throat.

“With the COVID regulations in place ‘sore throat’ is one of the things that is listed when we fill out the questionnaires, so until we knew that he was negative, then we couldn’t take the risk with that.

“We had to get the testing to completely rule out COVID – which we have now done – so he will be right to go now. We just could not get that test done in time ahead of the game.”

Standard tests are returned in 48 hours, and although emergency testing is quicker, Saints were not able to get that done in time for the game.

“There are no problems going forward and we knew that was most likely the case with Matty, but these are not normal times and you have to take more precautions than usual,” Woolf said.