Betfred Championship: Why Featherstone Rovers and Dewsbury Rams are feeling upbeat

Widnes have won their three games so far and are two points behind Betfred Championship leaders Featherstone, who maintained their 100 per cent record with a 30-12 defeat of London Broncos on Saturday.

Rams got off the mark by beating Sheffield Eagles 12-10 eight days ago, despite playing with 11 men at one stage. After back-to-back heavy losses, boss Lee Greenwood’s men had to dig deep and he said: “We obviously don’t win the majority of our games, so every time we do it is savoured. Without a win in the first two weeks, you do get nervous for your first one. We are glad we got it and we’ll see what we can do against Widnes now.”

Rams are relaunching a partnership with Shaw Cross at tonight’s game and Greenwood is keen for fans to turn out in force as his team bid to double up.

“It’s a big occasion,” he said. “Hopefully a lot of people who saw our game on Sunday will want to come back, because you certainly couldn’t fault the effort the lads put in and everything we had to go through to get that win.”

Rovers had to dig deep to see off lowly London, after leading only 12-6 at half-time.

Brandon Pickersgill opened the scoring for the hosts, but former Rovers man Dean Parata crossed to get London back on level terms. Gareth Gale’s try nosed Rovers back in front and he touched down in the second half before Oliver Leyland pulled a try back for Broncos and Sitiveni Moceidreke added his second conversion.

Pickersgill made sure of the points with his second try and Craig Hall, who also kicked five goals, went over in the final moments.

Batley Bulldogs’ home game against Sheffield was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.