Keighley Sport

Eaton knows his Sunday best

By Connor Murphy

11:40am Thursday 11th March 2010

Barry Eaton believes he is getting to grips with his best Cougars team ahead of Sunday’s first home league game of the season against Leigh.

After a pre-season heavily disrupted by the weather, Keighley have had to learn on their feet so far this campaign – with mixed results.

An impressive Northern Rail Cup campaign saw them qualify for the quarter-finals with a game to spare – their final group game against Barrow taking place after Keighley News went to press last night.

But a 72-10 defeat at Widnes in their league opener took the gloss off and, despite an improved performance last week, they exited the Challenge Cup following a 35-26 loss at home to Toulouse.

Leigh lie in wait on Sunday but a busy week gives head coach Eaton chance to finalise his best combinations.

He said: “Possibly because of the disruption to our pre-season, I didn’t get a full chance to look at everyone as much as I would’ve liked.

“But now I’m in a position to say what my best team is.

“Especially trying to integrate new signings, it was unfortunate we had friendlies cancelled.

“Over the course of this week, we will have been able to look at every member of our first-team squad in a first-team environment.”

Tom Hall, Jamie Shepherd and Luke Rayner were all expected to make their debuts at Barrow, giving Eaton the chance to rest players ahead of the visit of Leigh.

Cougars will definitely be without Brendon Rawlins for Sunday’s game, as the Aussie prop will be sidelined for at least two weeks after dislocating his shoulder against Toulouse.

Dan Belcher also remains sidelined with an ankle problem and will undergo a second X-ray this week to ensure the bone is not fractured.

But Eaton is confident his players can put opening-day embarrassment behind them when they face Ian Millward’s side, as long as they continue to tighten up on defence.

“The Widnes game was a massive blip,” he said.

“We made a lot of individual errors on defence that we don’t practice and they baffled me and the players.

“They were just errors where people haven’t communicated with the man alongside them and that’s something we started to put right against Toulouse.

“We dominated for long periods defensively last Saturday but we shipped the ball to the opposition too easily.

“They scored four tries on the back of us doing a repeat-set defence and then not completing the next set.

“At any level, that’s asking for trouble.”

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