Kingstone Press League 1 Preview: Swinton Lions v London Skolars

Swinton Lions coach John Duffy said their 30-18 victory at Newcastle Thunder was a really tough win.

“Newcastle are a good team and Stanley’s done a great job with them this year,” he said.

“They’ve got some big players with lots of experience so it was good to go up there and get a result.”

Looking ahead to the challenge of London Skolars, he said: “Jermaine’s been doing a fantastic job having taken on the role early on in the season. Confidence is high and we’ll go into it with our strongest team and are going to have to perform at our best to get the win.”

Wing Chris Rothwell is doubtful with a neck injury.

London Skolars coach Jermaine Coleman said: “Things are OK at the moment. I was pleased with our first half performance last week.

“I thought for once we came out and were pretty clinical in the first half and really put Oxford to the sword. Testament to Oxford, they came back at us in the second half and made it more of a contest. That put us under some pressure and they had a good few opportunities to score tries and did post a couple.

“I was disappointed with that, one of the goals we set for the second half was to keep them scoreless but overall I was happy with the performance.

“We’ve not been in that position all year where we’re sitting comfortably at half-time and I thought we were pretty good to close out the game.

“We go to Swinton with everything to gain and nothing to lose from a league perspective.

“From our own perspective we want to go up there, put in a good showing and not let ourselves down and keep that momentum going that we’ve built up over the last three or four weeks.”