Rams look for home comforts

The Rams turned in a terrific display to beat Keighley 29-22 on May 6 but have followed that up with poor performances at Halifax and Sheffield Eagles.

Dewsbury trailed 30-0 at half-time at Sheffield last Friday and ended up losing 42-10 but coach Warren Jowitt still has belief in his players and is confident they can bounce back against the in-form Centurions.

Jowitt said: “There are no excuses. Going to Halifax and Sheffield were big asks for us as they are quality sides playing on big fields but those performances were unacceptable.

“The players wanted to put things right after Halifax and we had trained well all week, but when too many key players have bad games, it has a knock-on effect to everyone else.

“It is easy to over-react in these situations, to start pointing fingers and giving players a rocket but all that does is put a downer on things.

“We need to get back to winning games and I trust and believe in this bunch of players.

“I know what we have in the locker room but we have produced two under par performances.

“No rugby league player goes out to give a bad performance but a catalogue of errors had a massive knock-on effect and sometimes the harder you try to make things better, you sometimes only make it worse.

“Leigh have hit form and it is another tough test but we have risen to the challenges at home and hopefully we will again.”

Ben Jones has been one of Dewsbury’s best players this season but missed last week’s game at Sheffield through injury, although the prop could return for the visit of Leigh.

Jowitt left Scott Spaven out last week to give Cain Southernwood a start at scrum-half alongside Patch Walker, but the coach could revert to the half-back pairing that served him so well in the early stages of the season.

Back-to-back defeats have seen Dewsbury slip to seventh in the table, but victory over Leigh on Sunday would see them leapfrog the fifth-placed Centurions, who have won their last five Championship matches having lost their opening two. They also reached the Challenge Cup quarter-finals and host Batley in the last eight of the Northern Rail Cup next month.

For score updates on Sunday follow Twitter @reporterAndy1