WARRINGTON Wolves’ coach Tony Smith has named a strong 19 man squad ahead of Sunday’s fourth round Carnegie Challenge Cup tie with Keighley Cougars.
Tony said:”The beauty of the Cup is that you need to take care of each and every game that you participate in and that starts on Sunday for us against Keighley.
“All Cup games are difficult for their own reasons. Coming up this week we won’t know as much about our opponents as we normally do. They’ll know more about us than we do about them. We’ve done our homework on them but we won’t be as familiar of the players as those we come up against each week in Super League.
The other aspect for them is they’ve got nothing to lose and they’ll come here with that sort of attitude on Sunday and that can be dangerous.”
The main absentees from the Wolves squad are Brett Hodgson, Benny Westwood, Louis Anderson and Richie Myler.
Young half back Gareth O’Brien is named alongside fellow youngster Rhys Williams.
Chris Riley is likely to return at full-back for the absent points machine Hodgson.
Keighley Cougars player-coach Jason Demetriou is looking forward to the challenge of Sunday’s clash with the current holders.
“It’s a huge challenge for us and probably one of the biggest games in this club’s history. We’re going up against the defending champions so the games don’t come much tougher than this. But there’s not going to be any pressure on us. We can go out there and give it our all without having any weight on our shoulder and that helps free the guys up to play their best game. We can go out and enjoy the occasion and make the most of it.”
Wolves 19-man Squad
23 Ryan Atkins 20 Matty Blythe 4 Chris Bridge 6 Lee Briers 10 Garreth Carvell 15 Jon Clarke
18 Mike Cooper 17 Simon Grix 13 Ben Harrison 14 Mickey Higham 3 Matt King 5 Joel Monaghan 9 Michael Monaghan 8 Adrian Morley 27 Gareth O’Brien 2 Chris Riley 26 David Solomona 22 Rhys Williams 16 Paul Wood
