Lock left with Slight chance of making reps

Pirates rugby captain and rep regular Andrew Slight has finished his club season ? and his rep season is in doubt.
Slight was taken from Spriggens Park yesterday to Whanganui Hospital after suffering a neck-related injury in a tackle near the bottom of a defending maul.
The match against Ruapehu was held up for almost 25 minutes while Slight was shifted.
Happily yesterday's diagnosis was that Slight has suffered a slipped disc in the accident and suffered ligament-muscle damage ? and this probably contributed to a tingling down his arm and into his fingers which led him to alert referee Steve Robinson that he might be in trouble.
The match was stopped and the medics called.
Slight apparently suffered a similar problem in the Wanganui XV versus Canada match last year, and there appears to be some damage in the area which was "restarted" on Saturday.
Slight was resting yesterday, but told club coach Ron Whelan he was out for a while.
"He said the disc had slipped, and the doctor advised him not to play for six to eight weeks.
I said, 'that's basically your club season gone.' He said he still wanted to have a crack at NPC, but I suggested his time for getting ready would be pretty thin."
The problem is the Wanganui Rugby Union's decision to go with a strictly under-20 team as a No 2 team this year ? meaning Slight, Mike Thompson etc will not have an avenue for play to get ready for the rep season.
Thompson is out for a similar period after breaking an arm when Ratana played Kaierau.
Whelan is hanging out the sign for locks after Saturday, because Dion Henare also out for between six to eight a few weeks after ripping muscles around the spine area, and big Hayden Bradley has not yet made a return from injury.
"I've got no locks, that's the problem," Whelan said yesterday. "I'm in trouble!"
He's appointed rep hooker Cole Baldwin as Pirates captain ? he took over after 30 minutes on Saturday. And Baldwin will almost certainly move back to his hooking berth, from where he's been on the side of the scrum.
"I'm going to have to put him back into hooker. The front row's the crucial part, he needs to be playing hooker. But at present I've got nothing to shove behind the front row."
Yesterday rep coach Milton Haig was not certain whether he would announce the teams for the Saturday, June 2, representative trial this week or next week. The trial is at Taihape.