Sunday's coming by Jim
Sunday sees the arrival of Batley Bulldogs in this re-arranged home fixture. Always durable and awkward to beat, the Bulldogs currently sit 13th in the table with 22 points and probably have too much catching up to do in too few games to have a realistic chance of making the top eight.
Last week, while a stuttering Hornets were cruising past a quite awful Swinton, Batley made extremely hard work of overcoming Gateshead up in the North East. Trailing 22-10 going into the final quarter, they left it very late to sneak an unconvincing 29-26 victory. Indeed, Batley have scored 80 points less than Swinton this term and only 26 more than Chorley.
Batley players to keep a close eye on include evergreen Roger Simpson at centre, blockbusting prop Jeff Wittenberg and influential utility player Mark Cass, who was instrumental in salvaging the game last week when he came on after an hour and went in at hooker.
Our bigest headache will come from Glen Tomlinson. Unable to impose or establish himself at Superleague level, he finds himself back steering Batley around the field. Currently playing out of the 13 berth, he was last week's League Express 'Gamestar' and has enough guile and experience to give even the best teams the runaround. A real tester for Latham Tawhai I think.
Hornets will be looking to hit our rhythm a bit earlier in the game this week. Last week it took us half an hour to get going and then we moved key players around which upset what little momentum we'd gained.
Danny Wood is obviously struggling with his back injury and has had a run of indifferent form, Marlon Billy continues to play gamely with his leg injury and deserves a rest. Big Bren O'Meara's cut ear shouldn't pose too much of a problem and, hopefully, Martin Hall will be looking to make as few changes as possible.
What we have lacked in the last couple of weeks is a bit of 'go-forward'. All we need is the confidence to attack teams early on and we'll see the benefits. We have pace and strength across the park and should be looking to capitalise from the off.
Hornets have grabbed that all-important fourth spot. It's up to us to hang on to it now. A big win on Sunday is vital. See you there.
Our Man at Red Hall previews Sunday's game
Hornets will have their best bib and tucker on for the arrival of the Bulldogs.
With no injury worries from the weekend win over Swinton Lions, coach Martin Hall is able to field an unchanged side, but he may make a few adjustments on the bench with Wayne McHugh and Warren Ayres pushing for places.
Batley, whose club was the victim of a smash and grab at the weekend, with losses costing in the region of £5,000, were hastily arranging for a new first team strip to be ready in time of the match.
Their on-field worries surround the injury to top scoring full back Craig Lingard who was helped from the game at Gateshead with a bad knee ligament injury, while prop Alan Boothroyd picked up a muscle strain.
Former Castleford forward Craig Wright could make his return from injury, with Jeremy Dyson coming in for the injured Lingard.
One player Hornets must watch is long-serving Mark Cass, who turned out to be Batley's match-winner at Gateshead.