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Time to realise our cup final dreams

3/ 7/2008

MALCOLM ALKER COLUMN: IT IS hard to put into words how important our Northern Rail Cup final with Doncaster is on Sunday.

As a kid growing up you always dream of playing in cup finals. And as a player cup finals do not come along very often unless you are lucky enough to play for one of the super powers like St Helens or Leeds.

This will be only my second ever cup final and I have been a professional player for what seems like donkey’s years. And for most of my teammates this will be the first time that they have ever played a professional game of rugby league in which a piece of silverware is on the line. So if anyone thinks that we will take the game lightly just because our opponents play in the division below us then they are kidding themselves.

We have been preparing for the game as we would if we were taking on the Australian Test side. There has been no stone left unturned in our preparation for battle and we are determined to put on a good show for our supporters in Blackpool.

Winning the game is our big goal for the match. And if we can do it in style then all the better. Doncaster have played really well in reaching the competition’s climax and they come into the game in good form having beaten Workington Town 40-2 at the weekend.

They have a much respected coach in Ellery Hanley and he will be making sure that his players believe that they can cause another cup upset. But there is no doubt that we have the stronger and more experienced squad and we are used to coming up against teams who are ultra determined to get one over on us.

Halifax were the latest team to try and they came mightily close to achieving their goal on Friday night. You have to take your hat off to them for coming back from 24-0 down to level matters at 24-24. But we showed a lot of character to shake off the disappointment of being pegged back.

You have to have guts if you want to be a champion team and we proved in defeating an extremely dangerous Halifax side on Friday night that we have them. Our reward was leap-frogging Halifax at the top of the League One table.

Being top again has taken some of the pressure off us Salford players going into the cup final. So there are no excuses. We should win the game and I am sure that we will win the game.