Preview: Dewsbury v Widnes

Lee Lingard returns for Dewsbury but Rob Spicer and Alex Bretherton are still a fortnight away from action.

Rams coach Warren Jowitt said: “Lee is defensively very good and he generally clears things up if someone breaks our line. Rob and Alex will also be back soon and they bring a never-say-die attitude. That’s what my team needs at the moment because we’ve got a lot of young, inexperienced players out there.”

Jowitt added: “Last week was a marked improvement on the week before. Defensively we were very good in some areas and lacked in others, but that’s more of a technique problem rather than a poor team defence. Once we get that sorted out then we’re definitely going in the right direction.

“When we got beat by Featherstone it was 40 points to whatever, but we didn’t get hammered. We gifted those points to Featherstone and I took something out of that. We smartened up and turned things around against Sheffield. There was a lot more effort and commitment.”

He continued: “We’ve just got to build on it for this week. The lads are buzzing because they know they’re going in the right direction. This week we’re looking to make an improvement on the Sheffield game and we’re not a million miles away.”

Widnes travel to West Yorkshire without experienced prop Gareth Haggerty, who will miss the next four games after being handed a suspension by the RFL’s disciplinary committee.

Vikings lost 30-28 against Halifax last week in a thrilling Co-operative Championship clash.

Coach Paul Cullen said: “Halifax were fractionally better than us. We know we can get better and we know we have some very good players to come back into the side.”