Coleman: It’s a crunch game

London coach Jermaine Coleman believes defeat this weekend against Keighley could end their hopes of promotion.

“I’m sure Keighley will raise their game this week, we’re both in a similar position. Realistically, whoever loses this game, it’s probably not going to be possible to reach that top five, so it’s a big game for both clubs,” he said.

“Because of what’s happened in the past I think this fixture, going forward, will always have quite a significant edge to it.”

The Skolars were one of the teams who didn’t play last week, which came as a welcome respite for Coleman who managed to bring back some players from injury.

“I’m not sure it was the ideal time to have a week off but it gives us an opportunity to get a couple of players back in the mix and hopefully we’ll have a stronger squad. We certainly have more numbers to pick from this week.”

Keighley suffered an 18-4 defeat to Rochdale Hornets last time out and even though they were reduced to 12 men for most of the match, Cougars coach Paul March thought they were unfortunate not to achieve a positive result.

“Despite being down to 12 men for the majority of the game, defensively we put in a good showing but at the end of the day, we’ve lost the game again,” March reflected.

“It’s disappointing as the lads worked so hard for each other and were asking questions with ball in hand.

“Obviously when you’re down a man, you have to re-shuffle but the game management wasn’t good. We were trying to score off every play and trying to find that miracle play to get us back into the game when we just needed to knock out some sets.

“York’s defeat to Barrow keeps us in touch with the top five but we need to start picking up those wins now and every game is must win, starting with the visit of London on Sunday.”