Kingstone Press Championship preview: Whitehaven v Bradford Bulls

Whitehaven had a fine win at Batley last weekend but coach James Coyle believes his side can be better.

“Batley’s a tough place to go. They are a team in and around us so it was an important two points,” he said. “To be honest I’m pleased with the result but the performance was a bit below where we’ve been at over the last few weeks.

“We made a lot of errors and contact wasn’t great – things we’ve been getting a lot better at we fell away a little bit. Over the 80 minutes we probably weren’t the better team but we stuck in the arm wrestle and took our chances and came away with the win.

Looking ahead to the visit of Bradford Bulls he said: “We did alright when we played Bradford at Odsal. The boys are confident, we’re not going in thinking we’ve got no chance at the weekend. We’re confident in our ability and if we perform to our potential we can get a result.”

Whitehaven will be without half-back John Paul Brocklebank, who has a shoulder injury.