Ladbrokes Challenge Cup Round 4 preview: Sheffield Eagles v Oldham

Sheffield Eagles had a good win at Workington Town last week and are going well in the Kingstone Press Championship, but coach Mark Aston is wary of the challenge of Kingstone Press League 1 side Oldham.

“There’s a bit of apprehension,” he said. “They’re going to be one of the top teams in that competition and justifiably so looking at some of the players they have.

“They’re going to be a threat and a different challenge for us. I’ve been quite hard on the players this week.

“I don’t think we’re at the levels we want to hit at the moment. It’s going to be a different challenge mentally and we need to raise the bar because week in week out now if you don’t raise the bar then you can get beaten.”

Rob Worrincy is a doubt due to a knee problem but Jamie Langley is expected to play some part this week.

Scott Naylor’s Oldham come into the game following an impressive 32-10 victory at Barrow in the iPro Sport Cup.

“We went up to Barrow with a game plan and stuck to it,” said Naylor.

“We started the game pretty slow but didn’t panic and then just got into our flow, which is good. We played a really good, solid match and it was a good team performance.”

But he’s under no illusions how tough the task will be on Sunday.

“There’s not many more places in the Championship that’s harder to go to than Sheffield,” he said.

“They’ve proved for years that they’re a quality team and they’ve got some top class players.

“We understand the task in front of us but at the end of the day it’s a challenge. We’ve got to go there and challenge ourselves and see what happens.

“We’ll be more confident after last week’s victory and I’m absolutely 100 per cent positive my lads will give everything they’ve got.”