WHITEHAVEN gave Jimmy Lowes’ men a huge fright when the sides met at the Recreation Ground last season – and they will be hoping for a repeat performance this evening.

After the Cumbrians had come back from 16-0 down to level the scores at 16-16 in the second half of last May’s encounter, the game could have gone either way.

Thankfully for Lowes, Danny Addy collected Adam O'Brien's pass to plunge over the line before Danny Williams finished twice in clinical fashion late on.

But the conditions could prove something of a leveller this evening as the part-time hosts bid to bounce back from their opening 52-6 defeat to Halifax.

Whitehaven trailed 18-0 just before half-time before Steve Tyrer finished his hat-trick to put Halifax 24-0 up at the break.

Forward Ben Davies said: “That try was a bit of a killer and stuff like that breaks you a bit.

“18-0 down isn’t too bad and you can maybe come back, but it has an effect on you and heads can go down.

“We can’t let that happen and we need to bounce back quickly.

“We started the same last year and it took us a while before we got a kick up the bottom.

“We can’t leave it that late this time because the league has got even better and we need to learn from it quickly.”

Whitehaven struggled to contain a free-playing Halifax as Richard Marshall’s side scored nine tries.

“They are a good team. We weren’t at our best and it showed,” Davies continued.

“They were too fast and kept rolling us. It’s hard to get out of that and get going.

“The ruck is very important. If you win it you’ll have an easy game and if you don’t you’ll struggle.

“They dominated it and were offloading everywhere.

“We knew what they were going to do but knowing about it and stopping it are different things. They showed they are a quality side.

“We’ve got two training sessions this week and our pitch isn’t in the best shape but we’re going to bounce back this week, it doesn’t matter who the opposition is. It’s on us to put things right.”