Proper Shefferfield Eagles Eddie Battye thinks we’ll have a true idea of where Mark Aston’s team “are at” in May.
Wakefield, Battye’s former team, visits Olympic Legacy Park on Friday. Sheffield has been setting the early pace with Wakefield.
The 1895 Cup semi-finals take place in York on Sunday, May 12. The Eagles hope to return to Wembley after winning the competition’s inaugural year in 2019 (they lost to Widnes in the final).
The steel city team will next travel to Bradford on Sunday, 19 before hosting Dewsbury at home on Friday, 24.
And Battye, who returned to his former team after a ten-year absence—he played for Wakefield and the London Broncos—says that this testing phase will determine whether Sheffield can maintain their strong start.
Aston’s team wanted to build on their victories over Toulouse, Doncaster, Whitehaven, Swinton, and Halifax going into their round-six match at Barrow.
The 32-year-old continued, “We feel we’ve won some of those games without playing that great. It’s taken us a little while to get into the groove of the season.
Some would say that’s encouraging, but it also indicates we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves since those kinds of games might not always go our way if we don’t keep growing and changing.”
Following a loan from London during the Covid-ravaged 2020 season, when Trinity was playing in Super League and the Broncos, then in the Championship, were idle, Battye spent three seasons at Wakefield.
Having gone through the agony of relegation the previous season, he is happy to see the team making a comeback under Matt Ellis’ leadership.
Battye remarked, “It seems like a different place these days, and I’m pleased for the fans and the boys who are still there—I keep in touch with a lot of them.”
“But I’m a Sheffield player now, and obviously I want to help us put one over on them.”