RUGBY PREVIEW: Horden v Bradford & Bingley

The Colliery side play his to third-botttom Bradford & Bingley at Welfare Park tomorrow (kick-off 3pm).

Horden are doomed for the drop but the Bees still have hope of getting out of the bottom three and Bowman knows they will be motivated opponents.

“This week is going to be a hard battle,” said Bowman.

“Bradford are in a relegation spot and scrapping to get out of it, there’s no doubt they’ll be looking at the fixture as a bonus point win.

“From our point of view the season isn’t over, we’re still looking for wins and this is a home game and a big opportunity.

“The game down at their place earlier in the season really was a game of two halves - we were 30-odd points down at half time.

“We’d lost Newton Turton and Andrew Turner to injury and we had people playing out of position all over the pitch.

“But the second half down there was one of the best displays of character I’ve seen from the team all season.

“The lads fought for everything, they never gave anything up.

“It has to be the same now.”

Bowman is looking for more vigour and energy from his players tomorrow.

“We need a bit extra in the loose from our pack,” he told SportMail.

“Our set-piece has been going pretty well but we need more going forward.

“If we get that and retain the ball better then we’ve got a real chance.”

Forward trio Paul Malcolm, Steve Heckles and Chris Purvis are out injured, but Taz Pelser comes back in at scrum-half after being unavailable last week.

Bowman was also absent last week because of work commitments but some of the feedback has given a bit of encouragement.

“I wasn’t at the game at Wheatley Hills, but I’ve spoken to a few of the lads,” he said.

“Their comments were all pretty similar to be honest, Wheatley Hills’ ball carriers were more effective than ours which give them good go-forward possession and their pack was more mobile than ours.

“We conceded a couple of soft tries around the fringes, if it wasn’t for those, the game would have been much closer.

“One the plus points was that we did defend pretty well overall and our scrum was dominant, so we need to take those positives into this week.”

Horden (from): R Brymer, C Jones, J McCallum, C Oliver, L Watson, A Docherty, D Heckles, T Pelser, M Thompson, C Wood, J Hudson, G Malcolm, P James (capt), R Walsh, N Turton, C Brown, M Hendry, AN Other