Kear’s Bulldogs determined to stop Swinton

Batley coach John Kear is hoping that his team can continue their recent fine form when they welcome Swinton Lions to their home ground on Sunday.

The Bulldogs overcame Featherstone Rovers 28-10 in the Challenge Cup last week, and Kear felt his team demonstrated their strength in attack to claim victory in that game.

“Featherstone are a very good defensive team and in order to threaten them you have to show great skill and structure and also an element of patience,” he said.

“I think we demonstrated that and obviously the fact that we scored quick-fire tries was the result of the quality of our play and the patience demonstrated.

“I was delighted with the team’s psyche as well as their skill level.

“Swinton have won three games and have played some good rugby. They’ve got a very good attacking structure and are a very threatening team.

“If we take them lightly, we’ve got rocks in our heads. They’re a good Rugby League team, who will challenge us and we need to be ready to accept that challenge and hopefully overcome it.”

Second rower Brad Day misses out with a broken thumb but centre Shaun Squires should be fit, despite sustaining a dead leg last week.

Swinton Lions coach John Duffy was pleased his team had a rest last week with no game.

“We needed a rest. We had some battered bodies after Easter and that big game at Halifax,” he said.

“Batley is probably going to be our toughest test of the year. They hit form again last week in the Cup game.

“They’ve obviously had some big results this year and John’s a fantastic coach so it’s going to be a massive test for us. We’ve just got to try and make ourselves better each week.

“We’ve been doing that over the last month, so hopefully we can go there and try and grind out a result.”