Match thread: Championship Round 6. Whitehaven v Featherstone Rovers. Sunday 28th April 2024.

So, good to get the win over Widnes and we need to keep the win going at Whitehaven.

From last week's 17: It looks like Gadwin Springer has had a recurrence of his previous injury. He only did 10 minutes so that's a blow. I can't think of any other injuries from Sunday. However, Jayden Tanner returned, and Wellington Albert is ready. And Nathan Massey can't be far off.

We are still waiting on injuries to Lacans and Hardcastle.

With Harris and Farrar at Hull, Tomlinson, Wacokecoke, Roberts and Arnold are also not getting game time.

In terms of DR, we've used 8 different players so far, but we know that Hall (sold) and Reynolds (suspended) are unavailable. Perhaps Gorman will be back? Butterworth looked impressive. And in the middles Aydin, Fishwick and Tennison seem to be available on rotation.

Cumbria's never easy, but we will be favourites for the two points.

Squad announced on Friday.

One area of difficulty at the moment is the rotation of our middles. I think there have been at least 4 games already this season where one of them has gone off at a fairly early stage with an injury and hasn't been able to return which has meant others picking up the slack. As a knock-on effect, we are now seeing multiple players in that position returning from injury and perhaps lacking a little in game fitness; I thought that for a period in the second half against Widnes we looked like we were struggling for energy defensively in the middle of the park.

Another knock-on effect is that Addy has been asked to do huge minutes nearly every week, and at times he has understandably looked to struggle with his workload. He's 33 years old and if he keeps playing 80 minutes he's going to be mentally and physically shot by the second half of the season. To me Tanner looked in need of more minutes on Sunday which was understandable, Bussey is still working his way back, and Massey will be in the same boat.

I'm still not sure what our best pack line-up is and I doubt Fordy is either, We're still finding out about Tanner and we haven't seen much of Massey either. With Kamano continuing to look solid, there's probably not much between quite a few of them behind Gadwin (when he's fit).

After watching the game back I thought tanner when fit will be great for us. So will be good to give him the time. Bussey slotted straight back in and did a stint. Mo for me should be on the teamsheet consistently. He's looked at home from the NCL step up

There is a club update on the Rovers official website from Martin Vickers for those interested.

I know this doesn't affect the Whitehaven game. But a message from the CEO said Lacans is only weeks away from return. Excellent news. Him back and Bowes at 9 would be alot more threat