The close-season recruit sustained a broken hand in the first half of Friday night’s 38-10 defeat at St Helens and doctors will today assess the full extent of the injury.
The setback is a cruel blow for Moon, who is only just back to full fitness after dislocating his ankle at the end of last season playing for the New Zealand Warriors in the NRL.
Reds coach Phil Veivers admits his heart goes out to the luckless centre.
He told M.E.N. Sport: “This is a big blow we could have done without at this early stage of the season. We saw against Saints the quality Joel can bring to the team.
“The only consolation – if any – is the fact that it’s his hand and not his wrist. It’s the last thing Joel needed right now – his confidence was just coming back from the bad injury he sustained at the end of last season. He simply needed games.”
The Reds led 10-4 at the break but Saints stormed back to make it two defeats so far for Salford.
Veivers claimed he could take many pluses from the spirited performance though.
Salford City Reds ready to blow Saints’ house down
St Helens 38 Salford City Reds 10
“We played very well in the first half but then stopped doing what we’d been doing so well,” he said. “I just want us to play for the full 80 minutes like we did at the start.
“We had 89 carries in the first half but only 44 after the break. We didn’t get an even share of the ball, Saints upped the tempo and we just couldn’t compete.
“The drain of energy has to be taken into consideration. We had a lot of defending to do and really dominated from the start.
“We’ve come a long way, the signs are encouraging, but we must step up again with Widnes next up.”
Veivers was left relieved there weren’t more injury setbacks.
“We had a lot of adversity to cope with going into the game,” he added. “We had injuries from the opening game with Castleford to contend with, we had players ruled out and then we lost Joel.
“We also thought Stuart Howarth and Ashley Gibson had sustained broken thumbs but thankfully this isn’t the case.
“I could have played Feka Paleaaesina (hamstring) but I didn’t want to risk throwing him in and then being without him for six weeks.
“We are disappointed to have lost our opening games but we just need to stiffen our defence because there are wins in this team and real determination.” Tweet
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we have no luck whatsoever, a "star" buy is once again sidelined by injury, it is like the start to last season as we lost a couple of players each game and ended up with a massive injury list, now we how Moon and Goodwin out for 2 months who will be next?
We need as much determination to succeed as we have had bad luck.
Hopefully Joel will be back for the start of a successful Challenge Cup run.
It would be nice to start a winning run in Super League as soon as possible and the public turn out to support the players who put in a real show of togetherness,skill and endeavour
on Friday night.
Onwards and upwards...