FEATHERSTONE ROVERS coach Paul Cooke hopes a weekend off will refresh his players before they take a trip to France to face Toulouse on Saturday.
His side chalked up a second win running – and seventh in eight league games, in beating Hunslet 70-4 at the South Leeds Stadium on Friday.
They had a quicker-than-usual turnaround after the 48-12 home victory over Barrow.
But the compensation was extra time to prepare for the revenge mission against Toulouse, who were 18-10 winners at the Millennium Stadium in April.
That meant a sixth defeat in Rovers’ first eight Championship matches, but the upsurge in form and results has underpinned belief that a play-off place can be achieved.
“We’re up in the six now, which was an objective we set after out slow start to the season,” explained Cooke, who stepped up from assistant to replace James Ford after two league games.
“The next objective is to stay in the six, and then we want to push up into the top four. It’s a tough ask, but these players want play-off football.”
Australian hooker Connor Jones, originally signed from Cairns-based Queensland Cup team Northern Pride in 2019, made his 150th appearance in the northern-hemisphere against Barrow (seven of them were for Salford in 2020, after which he returned to Rovers).
And both coaches noted the influence of the Rovers spine, with Barrow’s Paul Crarey admitting: “They were outstanding and controlled the match.”
Cooke said: “I thought our one (Caleb Aekins), six (Ben Reynolds), seven (Ryan Hampshire), nines (Will Jubb and Jones) and 13 (Danny Addy) were all great against Barrow.
“Those players pulled the strings for us and I don’t think they really had an answer. We scored some great tries and we left a few points out there.
“We needed a good performance after losing (30-8) at York, but there are still areas we have to work on and improve, and we’ll keep trying to do that.”