Whitehaven will be looking for their second win of the season over Newcastle Thunder when they clash at the Recreation Ground on Sunday.

In the regular programme Haven were 34-20 winners, also at the Recreation Ground.

That more than compensated for the pre-season defeat in the north-east when Thunder gave an indication of their potential improvement with a 46-16 win.

Haven chairman Tommy Todd said: “That was a particularly hard defeat to take but seemed to sum up our pre-season as a whole.

“Fortunately, things have turned around really well since then. To finish the regular season in second place was quite an achievement.

“Now we want to push on and clinch promotion back to the Championship.

“It was very disappointing to lose our opening [Super Eights] game against Barrow on Sunday. We certainly didn’t play anything like we did a fortnight previous.

“Obviously, it’s important for us to get back to winning ways, and Newcastle won’t be easy. I’m sure Carl will have made his feelings known to the players after the performance on Sunday and we are all expecting a reaction.”

Newcastle had clinched their place in the Eights for the first time with a string of excellent results under interim coach Jason Payne.

But they do come to west Cumbria tomorrow on the back of two successive defeats.

They lost the final game of the regular season when a controversial last-minute penalty gave Hunslet a 26-25 victory.

Then, after the one-week break, they were beaten at home 30-14 by Workington Town last Sunday.

Set to reach his 100th career appearance tomorrow will be Liam McAvoy, the 23-year-old prop who linked-up this year with Thunder from Workington Town.

McAvoy, who has just signed a new two-year deal with Newcastle, has been a standout player with his impressive tackle rate seeing him regularly topping 50 per game and high energy levels allowing him to enjoy a high amount of game minutes.