Sunday 3.00pm at The Shay
Halifax coach Karl Harrison insists his only focus is Halifax as he prepares for Sunday’s mouth-watering Kingstone Press Championship showdown with Sheffield Eagles.
Halifax have lost two of their first three fixtures in 2014, including last week’s 10-8 home reverse against Batley Bulldogs.
Harrison said: “It’s going to take time for the team to gel, but that’s not an excuse.”
He added: “I don’t worry about Sheffield or any other team’s results. I worry about our own results. We’ve got a few issues ourselves that we need to talk about before this game.”
Danny Cowling should be available for Halifax, with on-loan winger Tom Saxton looking for a brace of tries that will take him to a career century.
Sheffield’s Will Hope is expected to miss out with a knee injury though Dominic Brambani is set to continue to add to his run of consecutive appearances – his tally of 115 games is the longest run of consecutive appearances amongst Championship players.
Teammate Menzie Yere is set to play his 150th game for Sheffield while Eagles winger Scott Turner has scored tries in each of the Eagles’ last five games.
Hope joins Eddie Battye, James Davey and Joe Hirst on the sidelines, but Ben Jones is hoping to be fit for Sunday as battles to recover from an ankle problem.
Eagles coach Mark Aston is demanding a major improvement after last week’s 24-18 defeat against Barrow Raiders.
He said: “Too many people were not at the races. There’s no excuses, the team wasn’t good enough.”
