< Back

Pre-Match with John

Friday 30th July 2010

This Sunday's game takes on extra importance for us this week after learning of Blackpool's 10 point deduction and subsequent drop to 5th in the League Table.
We could find ourselves in 3rd position should we gain victory at Workington, and maintaining that position will see us move directly into the play off semi finals. But, that is further down the line than we feel comfortable looking. We have agreed to take things one game at a time and the sensible approach says that we must come away from Cumbria with the points this weekend to keep the pressure on York who have a tough trip this weekend to a much improved Swinton team.

The next few weeks of fixtures will be very important in terms of organising the League Table as we see some top 6 clashes and with every team now gearing up for the play offs, I'm sure that there are likely to be some shocks. Teams have improved throughout the season and many in the division are hitting good form at the right time, so anything could happen.

Having already played Workington this season, we have a good idea of what they will offer against us. Kaighan and Holt at halfback will be very important for them, and will no doubt look to kick them around the field on Sunday as well as dictating field position by using their big set of forwards to lay a platform for some exciting backs. Whitehead and Stack have been on good form this season and we must be switched on enough to realise their offload threat. The biggest battle that we are likely to face however is the pitch. Different dimensions at Derwent Park than we have at Spotland means that we will have to adjust our game plan to take best advantage of what we see as Workington weaknesses. It is also usually very windy at Derwent Park so this is something that we'll have to take into account.

We expect a very tough battle this weekend and previous results in Cumbria show that it is a very tough place to go to and gain victory. Hopefully, we will have gained the confidence from last week's victory to take the game to Workington, and we will be making sure that we put them under enormous pressure by completing our sets with the ball but also by asking questions of their defensive line. We are quite encouraged by the amount of points that Workington have conceded at home during their last few games with both London and South Wales scoring 24 or more. This will certainly give us confidence that we can breach their line and our attacking form this season has shown that we are one of the more proficient attacking teams in the competition.