Gene aiming to put smiles on Thunder faces

Newcastle Thunder coach Stanley Gene believes that the semi-final of the League One Cup is a chance to show just how far the club has progressed in recent times.

Although Thunder were knocked out of the Challenge Cup last week by Dewsbury, Gene believes that their recent win over York showed their true capabilities.

“We are going really well at the moment, we were disappointed with the result against Dewsbury in the Challenge Cup last week, we came up with a lot of errors and let our chances slip,” said Gene.

“We must learn from that if we are going to carry on progressing and beat bigger teams.

“Swinton are one of those teams, they have been in this league for a lot of years and they have some class players. I just hope we can push forward and put up a good fight.

“York are a good side and I know they have beaten us plenty of times in the past so that just shows how much we have improved over the course of last season.

“It is going to be a great game on Sunday, this club have struggled for years and we have slowly worked our way up. To get to the final would be fantastic, there are some great people here who have worked so hard and it would be good to put a smile on their faces.”