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Five may return

15/ 5/2008

COACH Paul Kidd is praying that Swinton Lions’ injury crisis is a thing of the past with five players hoping to return to action at Oldham Roughyeds on Sunday, May 18, kick-off 3pm.

Kidd says that full back Darren Bamford (ankle), half back Liam McGovern (broken hand) plus forwards Rob Line (sternum), Chris Tyrer (back) and Rob Ball (dead leg) all have a chance of playing in the game.

But Kidd is expecting to have to make do without hooker Phil Wood after his bruised ribs problem flared up again in his comeback game against York City Knights at the weekend.

To Kidd’s amazement, that was the only injury that the Lions sustained in the 50-28 defeat to York.

He said: "We had been getting more and more injuries every week so I was shocked to see us come through the York game relatively unscathed on the injury front.

"I can see light at the end of the tunnel with our injury crisis now. I am hoping to have three or four players back on Sunday and I hope that Andy Saywell we be able to return from his ankle injury the following week.

"But I have still got the likes of Rick Jones (ankle), Chris Hull (hernia), Wayne English (broken jaw) and Chris Morley (knee) out injured."

Swinton have lost all three of their meetings with Oldham this season.

But they pushed the Roughyeds, who started the campaign as the National League Two title favourites, close on two occasions and Kidd believes that his troops can cause an upset on Sunday.

He said: "Oldham are a really good side. They have five points more than us in the league and they are still in the Challenge and Northern Rail cups.

"But we have got enough in us to go there and give them a really good game.

"We showed a lot of character to come back from an unacceptable first half performance against York at the weekend. I was much happier with our second half display and we have to build on that now and start playing well for the full 80 minutes."

Swinton lie seventh in the table after losing their last two games.