Dewsbury Rams head coach Lee Greenwood is looking forward to the club’s fifth round cup tie against Thatto Heath on Sunday.
The amateur side have risen to high profile with their victory over North Wales Crusaders in the last round and the Thatto Heath team will be wanting to take another scalp when the Rams roll into town.
However Greenwood is anticipating a tough test from the merseyside club and insists the Rams will have to be on their best to beat them.
He said: “I know it is going to be a tough challenge for us this, it is similar to the last round against West Hull in the fact that we are facing an amateur side in the Challenge Cup. We need to prepare for an even bigger ambush with Thatto Heath playing at home, they’ll have a good home crowd supporting them. It is a big day for them as they have their A team in a national cup final too, it is a big day for the club and with our game being on the BBC Sport website, it should be a good day.
“They have chose our game because they probably sniff a bit of an upset and why not because they beat North Wales Crusaders in the last round.
“They’ll have a dig being at home and they have different threats to what West Hull had, Thatto Heath will come out fighting and yes we should be a harder opponent than North Wales due to being a division above but we need to prepare properly and it will be a tougher game than what West Hull was.
“There will be some players getting a chance, but I’d say they are all getting a good chance really, we weren’t entirely enthused with our performance away at Bradford. Yes we made a fist of it but we want to be better than that, and the lads know that and want to improve. The lads want to be in the team it’s not like they want to be rested, and I would say it’s not just those lads who didn’t play against Bradford that need to impress but some of those who did play against the Bulls too.
“It’s a funny one is Challenge Cup for league one and Championship clubs, realistically you may not win it because you will run into more than one Super League side on the way. However we want to go as far into the competition as possible, We would like to take on one of those Super League sides and hopefully we get that draw if we get through to the next round on Sunday.
“However we can’t be thinking about who we may get in the next round, we need to concentrate on Sunday and I know that if we don’t prepare right then we will get turned over like North Wales did. We have to treat this like we are playing a league one team in my opinion.
“Although North Wales haven’t won in the league, they have gone close against some of the top teams in league one, so they haven’t just gone and beat anyone Thatto Heath, they beat an alright side.”
Finally Greenwood updated us on the injury front he commented: “No major injuries to report on, we have pretty much a healthy squad, Martyn Reilly is now back in full training after getting the all clear.
“It’s far too soon for him to start playing yet but he’s back in full training which is good for us. The only one out really long term is Liam Johnson. and as said before he’ll be out the majority of the season.”
