Rowley anticipates strong Halifax performance

Leigh coach Paul Rowley is not going to underestimate Halifax when the sides meet on Thursday.

Rowley believes Halifax, under the leadership of Karl Harrison, they are a better side and could go onto win the Championship.

He said: “With the personnel they’ve got Halifax have always had the capacity to score a lot of points. That hasn’t changed, but Karl (Harrison) has had more of a focus on defence and that’s certainly had an effect.

“They’re more of a complete team this year. We don’t need to say much within our group about the threats Halifax pose. We know we’ll have to improve, but we’re confident of doing that.”

Rowley admits his side could struggle after picking up several injuries over the past few weeks. Captain John Duffy, Ricky Bibey and Jimmy Taylor are all set to miss out.

He said: “We’re not sure whether Ricky or Jimmy will recover in time for Thursday, but neither of them are going to be long-term worries.”

“We’ve been consistently good since our first friendly match. We’ve lost a couple of tight games, but I’ve got no complaints over the efforts of the team.

We’ve consistently defied the expectations on us, and we’ll strive to continue to that throughout the year.”