Hunslet want stand-off Joe Sanderson to go on the attack

Sanderson landed five goals from six attempts when Hunslet beat his former club Leeds Rhinos 34-28 in the Harry Jepson OBE Memorial Trophy two days ago.

He also challenged Rhinos’ defence close to their line and coach Gary Thornton confirmed: “That is certainly something we’ve asked of him.”

Thornton said: “He needs to develop that part of his game.

“There’s no doubting his kicking ability, but we’ve asked him to be a bit more attack-minded and take the line on a little bit more because we don’t want him to be too easy to read and defend against. That’s certainly part of his game we are trying to develop.”

Hunslet have one more warm-up game, at home to Bradford Bulls, before beginning their league campaign at Doncaster on Sunday, February 24.

Thornton felt the performance against Leeds was another step in the right direction. He said: “I was pleased with the win; a bit disappointed with the scoreline, but we played some new combinations. We were without Cain Southernwood and we missed him a bit and we missed Jimmy Watson as well.

“The other thing is, we brought in three lads from Halifax and they had only trained with us once so we were bound to be a little disjointed.”

Centre Conor McGrath and forwards Curtis Davies and Jordan Syme were the first three players to feature for Hunslet as part of their new dual-registration agreement with the Championship club. Thornton said: “They did all right, they didn’t let themselves down. I thought young McGrath played well in the first half, I was quite pleased with him.

“It is a new partnership and hopefully it will go well for us. They’ve got a good squad of players, but for them just to come in and only have one session, I thought they did okay.”

Winger Dale Bloomfield suffered a “stringer” to a shoulder, but Hunslet picked up no other major new injuries.