Hunslet have prepared for this weekends trip to Keighley Cougars safe in the knowledge that they need to retain winning form as they head towards the Play-off’s.
The Parksiders won at Cougar Park back in May, but Coach Dean Muir knows that Keighley are a different beast this time. “This is a big game, we need to challenge ourselves, be ready and battle hard.
“This is a stand-alone game; we can’t think about the play-offs.
“Keighley are a different side under Jake (Webster) than they were under Matt (Foster).
“Dan Parker takes control of the kicking and they have tactically shifted.
“They have good players but make similar errors to us.
”Keighley are big spenders, but you can’t buy heart and desire and we have that in spades.”
Speaking of last weeks victory over North Wales in which Hunslet came from 6-18 down to win 28-20 Muir said “Even at 18-0 down I wasn’t worried.
At half time we fixed a few things technically and tactically, there was no shouting and screaming.
We corrected bits of skill and in the second half North Wales were lucky to get 2 points.”
Even though this weekends game is a League fixture the play-offs are on the horizon.
“We haven’t won a play-off game in years, so we need to learn and deal with pressure and adversity.
It’s about internalizing, making everything about us and not the opposition.” said Muir.
Two of the new signings scored last week against North Wales, but Muir wanted to point out the unseen things done by both players “Ethan Wood (on Dual Registration from Wakefield) was superb in defence and took his try well, Mackenzie Turner is one of the fastest players in the league, but also has a good work rate and takes the ball in hard like Jack Render. Both lads have settled in well.”
Aaron Levy will be missing again this week and Mackenzie Scurr is 50/50, but the 21 will be similar to last week with the happy news that Lewis Wray is back in training.
