‘Disappointed’ Sheffield look to regain form as they travel to Barrow Raiders.
The Sheffield Eagles will play Barrow Raiders in round sixteen of the Betfred Championship on a trip to Cumbria.
Last week, neither team won: Barrow lost 22-2 to the Batley Bulldogs, while the Eagles lost 22-34 to the Swinton Lions at home.
But this season couldn’t be more dissimilar for the two teams; Barrow is second from the bottom in the 14-team league, while Sheffield is in second place, trailing only Wakefield Trinity, who are still unbeaten.
On the match-up between the two sides, assistant coach Simon Brown said: “we’re looking forward to it, it’s always a tough trip going up to Barrow it’s a tough place to go.”
We’re eager to recover from Sunday’s disappointment, which wasn’t really what we wanted to be about or who we are, so we’re eager to go up there and exact some revenge.
Alex Foster, Mitch Clark, and Ryan Millar return to the starting lineup for this weekend’s matchup, according to head coach Mark Aston’s three-man changeup.
The three returnees take the places of Bayley Liu, Aaron Murphy, and Lewis Peachey as the Eagles attempt to hold onto their second-place standing, one point clear of Toulouse Olympic.
On the importance of getting the two points to stay in second place, Vila Halafihi said: “oh massively yeah, and I don’t think as a team we’re worried about those people behind us we’ve been in a similar position last year where we were second for the majority of the year”
“I think we’ve learnt from last year, we just concentrate on our game week by week not worrying about Bradford, Toulouse and Widnes those teams that are just below us we know we have to go out there at the weekend […] that’s the most important thing for us.”
Sheffield will look to claim the league double over Barrow, after they defeated the side 54-0 at home earlier in the season, as they face the Raiders at 3 pm on Sunday 21st July at Craven Park.
