Whitehaven coach seeks recovery

Whitehaven are likely to have “one or two” players missing but coach Ged Stokes is keeping his cards close to his chest.

Whitehaven were beaten 54-6 at Batley last week, but former Kiwi international Motu Tony made his debut for the club and gave Stokes reason to be cheerful.

Stokes said: “It wasn’t the greatest game for Motu to be introduced to but he showed some of touches he’s renowned for. He’s got a bit of ring rustiness but he’ll certainly prove to be of benefit to us.”

Stokes added: “We do need to get a response from that performance. A lot of it comes back to a lot of individual errors. Those errors make it look like there’s not a lot of effort going in, but I can assure everyone that there’s a tremendous amount of effort going in.

“If you have a look at Salford’s win against St Helens last week, that’s the sort of performance we’re looking for. It’s certainly achievable.”

Leigh trio Jake Emmitt, Lee Mitchell and Tyrone McCarthy could all come into contention after missing the midweek game against Featherstone.

Centurions’ assistant coach Paul Rowley said: “They’re a wounded animal because they’ve had a disastrous run of late.

“Over the recent history they’ve been like ourselves, but just as we were last year, they’ll be sitting very uncomfortably where they are.

“The pressure will be well and truly on them at the weekend and hopefully we’ll have a couple of players back.”

He added: “Whitehaven will be pinpointing it as a big home game and a good scalp for them. They’ll want to send a message out to the rest of the Championship that they shouldn’t be written off just yet.”