Lions will come good – Ainscough

Martin Ainscough reckons the solidarity and talent in Swinton’s dressing room will help them turn round their slow start to the Championship campaign.

The promoted Lions have found the going tough so far with opening defeats to Sheffield and Dewsbury following on from a lacklustre showing in the Northern Rail Cup.

Ainscough, the former Widnes, Rochdale and Blackpool stand-off, was an ever-present in last season’s Championship One title-winning campaign and is a key player.

He said: “We always knew it was going to be a massive step up and in pre-season we trained well and identified areas where we needed to improve our game.

“We knew it was going to be a massive challenge and we started off a bit away from where we need to be.

“We are working hard in training and we need to get back to basics, do what we do on the training pitch and move on from there.

“We’ll stick together. We have a massive team spirit here and we’ll start doing that little bit extra for each other.

“Hopefully results will come our way if we do that.”

The Lions have a break from the Championship when they play amateur club Siddal in the third round of the Challenge Cup at Leigh Sports Village on Sunday (2pm).

The tie is a repeat of the game played at the same stage of the competition three years ago when the Lions won 10-6 at The Shay in Halifax.

Ainscough said: “We’ll be taking this game very seriously because Siddal are a national premier club and they are doing very well.

“In the last few seasons they have been getting to finals. It’s not going to be easy.

“We have to look after our own performance and if we do that and play like we can do, we’ll be alright.”