News
HARRIS COULD BE FIT FOR TV GAME
2nd June 2009
IESTYN Harris, Featherstone's key man, is hoping to play after all in Thursday's televised Northern Rail Cup quarter-final clash with Oldham.
It was thought the Oldham-born dual-code international might be ruled out for the season when he ruptured a bicep at Barrow ten days ago.
But the 32-year-old stand-off, Featherstone's chief playmaker and midfield general, has made a better-than-expected recovery. He had a scan yesterday and he will know one way or the other in the next 24 hours whether he will be plotting Oldham's cup downfall from stand-off or from a seat on the bench next to head coach Daryl Powell.
Said Iestyn: "I'm keeping fingers crossed. I would love to play against Oldham --- it's a long time since I did that --- and at this stage I would say I have a chance; a slim one, but a chance.
"To be honest, I'm not expecting to be right, but I'm not ruling it out either. A lot will depend on the results of the scan, but the arm feels a lot better than it did a week ago so here's hoping."
Harris last lined up against his hometown club while playing for Leeds Rhinos in the Oldham Bears ill-fated Super League season of 1997.
Leeds won at Headingley and at Boundary Park before beating Bears a third time, 42-16, in an end-of-season play-off tie at Headingley. It was to be the old club's last game before it perished and went into voluntary liquidation.
The team that day: Atcheson; Ranson, Hill, Cowan, Jones; Maloney, Deacon; Lord, McKinney, Temu, Faimalo, Topping, Goodwin. Subs: Myler, Leuila, Guest, McNicholas.
Twelve years on the sport has changed beyond recognition, but some things remain the same, like Iestyn Harris's class.
So what does he think of the "new" Oldham and of Thursday night's showdown in front of the Sky Sports cameras at Leigh's new £83 million Sports Village Stadium?
He said: "Oldham have a lot of good, attack-minded players. If there is a flaw they are perhaps a little bit fragile in defence. We'll be looking to pose questions with our attacking structures and hoping they can't come up with the answers.
"Having said that, when we are defending they will be difficult to handle. They have some dangerous individuals and defensively we will have to be on our mettle.
"Oldham seem to be a side who believe they will always outscore the opposition. My thoughts on that are rather different--- I think defence is the main thing and that if you get that right you will win a lot more games than you lose.
"They are certainly scoring a lot of points, but they seem to be leaking a few as well. We expect it to be a great game and, as a last-eight tie in a cup competition, it is very important for both clubs.
"The Northern Rail Cup is a great competition. Being realistic it is the only cup competition that clubs like ours in the Championship and Championship 1 can win. The most our clubs can probably hope for in the Challenge Cup is a quarter-final place. After that all clubs outside SL would be struggling.
"But the Northern Rail Cup is OUR Challenge Cup; it is without doubt the Challenge Cup of the lower divisions; and it gives clubs like Featherstone and Oldham a real chance of reaching a final and lifting a trophy on a big day out at Blackpool.
"It is rapidly gaining in status and popularity and it is a competition that Featherstone would love to win. I'm sure Oldham would say the same."