CC Preview: Featherstone v British Army

Saturday March 5th – 2.00pm

Featherstone Rovers welcome the British Army to the BigFellas Stadium for the second time in three years.

The sides met in the Challenge Cup in 2009 in a fixture Featherstone won 94-2, but Rovers head coach Daryl Powell isn’t expecting things to be as one sided this time around.

“The Army guys will be tough, no doubt about it,” said Powell. “The nature of what they do makes them very fit and we know it will be an extremely physical contest. We will need to start much better than we did against Barrow last time out and if we can do that then hopefully we’ll have too much for them on the day.

“We’ve got three props injured at the minute which is making life difficult for us and our guys have been playing a lot of games recently. We’ve had a tough opening to the season and we’ve a short turn around before our opening Championship game, so we’re certainly not taking anything for granted.”

Both sides are combining to make game day a ‘Family Fun day’, with tag Rugby competitions, climbing walls and assault courses and Powell believes the festival atmosphere is good for the game.

“It’s always great to play against the Army and it’s great to see them in the Challenge Cup,” said Powell. “We’ve played them a few times in recent years and we’ve built up a good relationship. They’ve supported our fun days and they’ll be bringing climbing walls along for families again this year so it’s great to get everyone involved and long may it continue.”