Old Crossleyans captain James Wainwright has urged his teammates not to let their season wither ahead of tomorrow’s home date with Wheatley Hills.
Crocs have enjoyed a solid season in North East One and lie sixth going into this weekend’s round of fixtures.
But they crashed 49-12 at Keighley last weekend, a performance Wainwright is keen to put behind them immediately.
“It was a bad day all round and it’s important we don’t let the season just fizzle out now, because we’ve been better than that,” said Wainwright, who had warned in the run up to the derby that Keighley’s position on the fringes of the relegation fight made them dangerous foes.
“We’ve got eight games left and we need to give a more determined effort tomorrow, I think we owe that to the club.
“Last week was one of those days; they wanted it more than we did and we had too many players who had bad games.
“I think of some our senior players probably had their worst ever performances, and Keighley played well, to be fair to them.
“Tomorrow is another difficult game, because until last week they inflicted our heaviest defeat of the season.
“But I think everyone wants to get out there and put right the things that went wrong last week.”
Crocs will be boosted by the return of player-coach Chris Jones, while Manny Riaz - who was a late withdrawal last weekend - is also back.
Wainwright will drop from the second row back to his original position of wing to cover for the absent Billy Hammond.
“Having Chris and Manny back is good news, because they’re two of our bigger forwards,” said Wainwright.
“Wheatley Hills have got a pretty big pack, so we’ll need them.”
Halifax Vandals coach Ed Morane is looking for a win by any means when his side host Wetherby in Yorkshire Four.
Vandals went down 22-0 at Leeds Corinthians last weekend, their third successive defeat.
Morane welcomes back Danny Mitchell in the pack, while the former rugby league players Craig Sim and Paul Knapping return at centre and fly half respectively.
Morane moves from his usual No. 8 spot to half back.
“We should have a bit more punch in the backs and I feel more comfortable orchestrating play rather than watching it unfold,” he said.
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