Co-operative Championships preview

Thursday April 19

Halifax v Leigh Centurions (7.30pm)

Halifax coach Karl Harrison looks set to recall Luke Ambler, Jim Gannon, Wayne Reittie, Anthony Thackeray, Adam Robinson and Ryan Fieldhouse for Thursday's televised Co-operative Championship showdown with Leigh Centurions.

All six players missed last week's 84-28 Carnegie Challenge Cup win over South Wales Scorpions, but will be back in the reckoning as Halifax look to maintain their 100 per cent start to the league campaign.

Leigh pair Ricky Bibey and Jimmy Taylor are both struggling after suffering minor knocks in last week's Carnegie Challenge Cup win over Rochdale Hornets. John Duffy also remains absent.

Centurions coach Paul Rowley said: “We're not sure whether Ricky or Jimmy will recover in time for Thursday, but neither of them are going to be long-term worries.”

Leigh will now face Halifax in successive games after drawing them as Challenge Cup fifth round opponents, and Rowley – himself a former Halifax star – admits the Shaymen have got even better in 2012.

He said: “With the personnel they've got Halifax have always had the capacity to score lots of points. That hasn't changed, but Karl (Harrison) has had more of a focus on defence and that's certainly had an effect.

“They're more of a complete team this year. We don't need to say much within our group about the threats Halifax pose; we know we'll have to improve, but we're confident of doing that.”

Rowley added: “We've been consistently good since our first friendly match. We've lost a couple of tight games, but I've got no complaints over the the efforts of the team.

“We've consistently defied the expectations on us, and we'll strive to continue to that throughout the year.”