Benson keen to check progress

ROUGHYEDS coach Tony Benson will use tonight’s friendly with Huddersfield as a first indicator of his squad’s on-field progress.

While an intensive training regime has been in place since early November last year to ready his men physically, it is still early days in terms of getting to grips with team structures.

Every one of the 11 new faces within the Roughyeds squad will get a run-out against a young Giants side at Boundary Park tonight (7.45pm kick off), with the exception of Irishman Wayne Kerr, who is is not yet considered ready for action following a late arrival due to his participation in the World Cup.

But while nobody should expect champagne rugby league at this early stage, Benson is keen to find out how receptive his players have been to recent tactical work.

“We will set out to do what we have practised,” said Benson, who is also testing the water on a new captain for the coming season.

“We will check on our fitness, although we know that is in good shape, and will also be looking at how we structure ourselves in certain parts of the game.

“We have a couple of plays we have worked on around the try line. Our ruck defence should be pretty tight and we have looked at a couple of ruck plays coming out of our own half, while we have also done work on our territorial game.

“All these things have been limited due to not being able to train on a pitch recently, but we will have a chance to see where we are up to.”

Huddersfield, who are sending a first-team squad over to face Super League rivals Castleford this Sunday, will be marshalled by reserve team coach Paul Cook rather than first-team boss Nathan Brown.

The squad that travels across the Pennines is to be made up mainly of players from the under-18s and under-21s squads.

Oldhamer Joe Walsh, the promising 21-year-old loose forward, won’t be in action tonight. He is among a group of five promising youngsters — the others being Shaun Lunt, Gregg McNally, Jermaine McGilvary and Richard Lopag — who played in Huddersfield’s creditable 32-18 defeat at Halifax on Boxing Day, but that quintet will be considered for action against the Tigers rather than the Roughyeds.

In the festive Infirmary Cup clash against their West Yorkshire rivals, Huddersfield put up a good show against more experienced opposition and led 18–16 at half-time at The Shay before understandably falling away in the second half.

Benson, who is expecting plenty of endeavour from the Giants, hopes that his side can produce some attractive rugby.

“They are a pretty skilful side and pushed Halifax close,” he said. “I expect it to be a good match and we will certainly be going out to play an expansive game.”