Duffy’s Lions ready for Haven at home

Swinton Lions coach John Duffy is hoping that his team can build on their 32-24 victory at Batley last week.

But he knows that his side faces a tough test against Whitehaven, who beat Oldham at home last time out.

“It was a massive win,” he said.

“We’re in a good place at the minute but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. We know how tough the league is.

“Even after a few wins we’re not taking anything for granted we’re still going to work hard and try and get better each week.

“Whitehaven had a good win against Oldham, who have been playing really well. This will probably be our biggest test of the season.

“They seem to play better away from home and they’ve got a lot of lads from around this way who will want to play well. We’re going to prepare well this week and keep trying to progress and hopefully pick some more wins up.”

Lions hooker Vila Halafihi is out with a bicep injury.

Whitehaven coach James Coyle was very pleased with his team’s win over in-form Oldham.

“Oldham have been going really well and you could tell by the way they were playing that they were confident,” he said.

“They wanted to get into an arm wrestle and grind us down. I thought we stuck at it well and defended really well. We had a bit of resilience, which was good to see.

“Swinton are playing some really good stuff. They will question our decision-making and our intensity from the inside and they strip your edges so it’s a completely different challenge this week to last week.

“Bbut again it’s another team who are confident and in good form. We need to be at our best.”