Kingstone Press League 1 Preview: Newcastle Thunder v Coventry Bears

Newcastle Thunder put in a much improved performance against league leaders Oldham.

Coach Stanley Gene said: “I’ve been asking for honesty from the team all week and they gave me that, that’s all I can ask for. Coventry pushed Barrow last week so they’re not a soft side and they could teach us a lesson that Gloucester taught us. But that good performance against Oldham will probably give us a lift and we’ll hopefully get back to winning ways.”

Tom Tsang’s Coventry Bears got back to winning ways last week.

“It was a good performance,” he said. “It was similar to how we’ve started the last four or five games. We started off really strong in the first half, the difference being that we managed to get over the try line and build up a decent lead.

“We played some good stuff. I don’t think the lads are used to being in that position because they took their foot off the gas a bit and full credit to South Wales they really stuck in there and made it tough for us.”

Looking ahead to this week’s challenge he said: “Newcastle have got class players across the field. Their recent form hasn’t been as good as how they started the season but I know that they’ll be wanting to finish the season strongly.

“It’s going to be a tough game. It’s a long journey for us but we’ll be buoyed up from the win and also from the run of performances we had going into the South Wales game.

“We’re improving week-on-week quite dramatically, hopefully now we can kick on and finish the season strongly.”