Kingstone Press Championship Preview: Featherstone Rovers v Doncaster

Featherstone Rovers go into this game on the back of a 52-0 win at Workington Town.

Coach Andy Hay said: “It was a very professional performance at Workington. After a long trip up there we did a really good job.

“I thought we were clinical and it proves we can play and there’s some life in us. We’ve also proved to ourselves as a group that we are better than we have been showing in the last couple of weeks, so hopefully that’s the start of a good run-in now.

“We worked on and talked about defence all week, there were no targets set but the players had the determination right from the start. The enthusiasm and desire was there, which we probably lacked the week before.

“We need to kick on this week. We don’t want to be the team that Doncaster get their first win against. They’re making small improvements, they got their half-backs back in the team and the dual-regs with Hull, so they’ll throw a few of those players in.

“When we played them at their place at the start of the year it was a very tough game so we’ll expect a tough one again. We need to keep improving, we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas and think ‘it’s Doncaster and they haven’t won a game’. If we do it’s going to make it a very tough evening – that’s when you get caught out.”

Doncaster coach Gary Thornton was able to take some positives out of his side’s 30-4 defeat to London Broncos.

“In the first half we were well in the game,” he said.

“But I was really disappointed with the final score, I didn’t think it reflected the game to be honest. We ran out of stream a little bit in the second half and came up with a few poor options but that’s to be expected.

“I made eight changes from the Bradford game and it’s going to take time for them to gel but the more we train and the more we go through things, then the better we will be.”

Looking ahead to Friday’s match he said: “There aren’t any easy games are there? For a team low on confidence every game we go into is tough.

“Featherstone had a terrific win up at Workington, so we know we’ve got to improve even more. If we can improve week by week we’ll get better and I’m looking for a bit more improvement this week.

“We’re trying to up the fitness levels because we do seem to drop off in the last 15/20 minutes. It’s bit by bit, we can’t change it all at once.”

There is a doubt over second row Steve Snitch who has a groin strain and front rower Matt Groat is suspended but prop Brett Waller is available and scrum-half Danny Nicklas is back in training.