Dewsbury Rams 'want to play every fixture' says coach Lee Greenwood as long layoff nears end

Rams will play their first competitive match for more than a year when they visit Whitehaven in the Betfred Challenge Cup on the weekend of March 19-21.

The winners will travel to West Wales or Widnes Vikings the following week in round two and Rams open their league campaign at home to Whitehaven on Good Friday, April 2. The Betfred Championship table will be decided on points percentage this year, because of the risk some clubs will miss matches due to players testing positive for Covid-19 or having to isolate.

Clubs can request a postponement if seven or more players are ruled out for those reasons, but Greenwood stressed that will be a last resort for Rams.

They have built a bigger squad this year because of the risk of players being sidelined and Greenwood said: “If we get seven people isolating, but we have still got enough to play the game, we are going to play it.

“We want to play games. It won’t be a case of ‘we’ve got seven missing, great - we can postpone that one’. If I have still got 15 men standing, we will play.”

Greenwood’s side have been out of action since a Challenge Cup defeat at Newcastle Thunder on March 15, 2020. He added: “We have missed rugby for so long, we just want to get games on now. That’s the reason we are playing two friendlies; we are going to go hard for the Challenge Cup, we want to get through and get as far in that as we can and we certainly don’t want to be losing any games.”

Rams had won three of their four league games when the Championship was abandoned last year because of the pandemic. Greenwood said: “We were one of the very few clubs that were really, really pushing to play last year. We miss it.

“Maybe that’s because we got off to a good start and were in a good spot, but I coach because I want to coach rugby and players want to play. We will be doing everything we can, safety-wise, to make sure we never get to a position where we have seven, but if we do and we still have enough bodies to field 15, we will do it.”