Jonty Gorley has named a 19-man squad for this afternoon’s Cumbrian derby against Barrow Raiders at the Summer Bash!
Daniel Spencer-Tonks returns, following his loan spell at Rochdale, while Ryan King is back after not being allowed to play against his former club Halifax Panthers.
Marcus O’Brien, Liam McAvoy, Callum Phillips and Oscar Doran are all absentees through various injuries.
Doran is under the head injury protocol and will be the first back in action next month but the others are not likely to return until July.
Skipper Karl Dixon is also carrying an injury even though he has been included in the 19.
Gorley revealed that he had put together a game of cricket for his players and then gave them the night off for the two training sessions after they were heavily beaten 60-0 at Halifax.
He said: “I just wanted to break that cycle of gloom that seemed to be around the club. That poor performance against Halifax, when we were a country mile off where we should have been, and also the negativity around the club with all the rumours that were circulating.
“But we’ve the right game to come back into – a Cumbrian derby and I’m sure it’s going to be another tight contest as it was down at Barrow. As usual in these sort of games it will be who wants it most and who makes the least mistakes.
“Paul Crarey has been round the block and knows what it’s all about. He will have them fired up for this one and we have to be ready for it and be ready to match them.”
Crarey, the Barrow coach said: “It will be a warm day, and when we played Bradford it was warm and quick.
“Hopefully that will suit us a bit more, our style. We don’t want to get sucked into a forward battle like we did last time.
“We want to go there positive and play like we did against Bradford, rather than we did against London when we were a bit tentative.
“What we’ve done when we’ve played well is throw the ball around with lots of enthusiasm, so we need to do that in abundance to give ourselves a chance because they’ve pulled off some great wins.”
Whitehaven’s squad: Dave Eccleston, Chris Taylor, Curtis Teare, Karl Dixon, Alex Bichop, Tom Walker, Connor Holliday, Lachlan Lanskey, Dion Aiye, Jamie Doran, James Newton, Lasarusa Tabu, Guy Graham, Perry Singleton, Ryan King, Lucas Castle, Josh Rourke, Daniel Spencer-Tonks, Ross Ainley.
Barrow squad: Keanan Brand, Luke Broadbent, Sam Brooks, Greg Burke, Jake Carter, Rio Corkill, Luke Cresswell, Charlie Emslie, Ben Evans, Ellis Gillam, Anton Iaria, Ryan Johnston, Danny Langtree, Nathan Mossop, Jarrod Sammut, Ryan Shaw, Jarrad Stack, Shane Toal, Jack Wells, Josh Wood, Greg Worthington.
