Dewsbury Rams boss Kelly warns of potential travel pitfalls to Toronto Wolfpack

The Betfred Championship leaders’ remaining six games are all at home and they will have four Qualifiers fixtures in Canada if they finish top of the table. Dewsbury lost 64-12 at Lamport Stadium three days ago, but visa issues meant they travelled without certain players and two were turned away when the group arrived at Manchester Airport for their trans-Atlantic flight.

Kelly named a full side, but had only three players on the bench. He said: “The experience was okay overall, we were well looked after, but one or two things could be better. We are not competing for [a place in] the Super-8s, but there are things Super League clubs need to be made aware of, not least the prospect of not having players allowed into the country. If you are going to be competing against Toronto you need to be at full-strength.

“Rugby league is a game played by normal people and if you have any group of 30 people, some of them might have been in trouble with the police in the past. I’m not saying they are in trouble now, but people do silly things as kids.

“You have to make sure you get these things sorted out well in advance. We started planning in April and still had two players turned away at Manchester Airport.”

Kelly added: “I hope the Super League clubs going over there get enough notice, because if Salford or Widnes went over there and had significant players missing, because they were not allowed in the country, it could seriously weaken their side and their chances of winning.”

Meanwhile, of the result in Canada Kelly said: “You can’t get away from the scoreline, but overall – under the circumstances – I was happy with the players’ efforts. I don’t think anybody expected us to win, but there were certain things we were looking for from the players in the game and certain targets we set them. I thought they achieved those targets overall and in the second half we were superb, really competitive.”