Keighley ready to face All Golds

Keighley Cougars coach Paul March is hoping that his team can build on their impressive 70-10 defeat of Oxford last week.

March’s team welcome the Gloucestershire All Golds to West Yorkshire on Sunday, and the coach wants to see a quicker game.

“I was pleased with the amount of points we scored but it was a very slow game,” he said.

“We’ve got another challenge this week and I regard Gloucester as probably the top southern side at the minute.

“They are well coached by Lee Greenwood and have some exciting players so we’ve got to be on our guard this weekend and take all the confidence we’ve had over the last few weeks into the game.”

The All Golds lost 38-16 at Rochdale Hornets last week, a result that coach Lee Greenwood accepts as not being good good enough.

“We weren’t good enough last week,” he said.

“The bus only arrived half an hour before kick-off, which wasn’t great preparation. I could forgive a slow start and we came back into it but we weren’t quite good enough really.

“Rochdale are top of the table and we want to get to their level but we’re still a way off yet. We know what we need to do and the challenge is actually being able to do it and compete against them.

“It doesn’t get any easier this week and we’re struggling for numbers all of a sudden. It just seems that once you get a few injuries you get more – in all the leagues!

“We usually train on Tuesday but we didn’t have enough. So we’ll have a head count at the weekend, which isn’t great going to Keighley, so we’re doing it tough.”