Greenwood believes Yorkshire Cup can become integral part of pre-season

Dewsbury Rams coach Lee Greenwood believes the Yorkshire Cup could become an integral part of pre-season.Dewsbury Rams coach Lee Greenwood believes the Yorkshire Cup could become an integral part of pre-season.
Dewsbury Rams coach Lee Greenwood believes the Yorkshire Cup could become an integral part of pre-season.
Dewsbury Rams coach Lee Greenwood believes the re-formed Yorkshire Cup could become an integral part of pre-season in years to come.

Dewsbury booked a semi-final trip to Bradford this Saturday thanks to a 20-14 victory over Featherstone Rovers last week and Greenwood thinks clubs from both sides of the Pennines could be paying close attention to the inaugural competition.

Greenwood said: “I’d be surprised if it (Yorkshire Cup) doesn’t take off now. It is the clubs that have come up with the idea as a better way of getting people behind the pre-season friendlies.

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“It is great and there is a trophy at stake and the double headers are a good idea as it gives you chance to have a look at the other teams.

“I’m sure if the RFL can get the backing of it, I’m sure the North West clubs looking over and saying we want a bit of that and then you will probably see the Super League clubs trying to jump on it.

“It can definitely expand and perhaps get some sponsorship for next year but as a starting point its great.”

Dewsbury picked up their first win under Greenwood and join York City Knights and Batley Bulldogs in the last four.

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Greenwood was pleased with his side’s display against Featherstone as his new-look Rams side build towards the new Championship season.

He added: “I thought we were alright in the first half but we made a poor start to the second half and it carried on.

“Losing a man to the sin-bin and then the amount of defending we had to do I thought we did quite well to win it to be fair.

“Some lads have done themselves plenty of favours heading towards the season and others were probably not quite at the races or ready for this level yet, so there is some work to do with people.

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“At any point there were probably six or seven lads either playing their first game for us or playing their first game at this level so there was always going to be scrappy. I am not too concerned about some of the not so good stuff and we did well to win because Featherstone are still a Championship team and we have beaten them.”

Dewsbury began brightly and led 10-0 early on and survived a second half fightback by a Rovers side, who included a number of trialists in their ranks, to register victory.

Greenwood added: “I liked Jordan (Andrade’s) try because that was the first time we put an organised set together without just making it up.

“We were organised throughout the set and finished with an organised play to finish it off, which looked good.

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“We have got some big boys in there and they are hard to defend against when they put it together.

“In the first half we defended really well on our line and it was only a little kick which they got us on but in the second half we looked a bit loose on our right and there are areas to work on.

“When we did get put under pressure and had a lot of defending to do, we came through and managed to score a nice little try in the far corner.”

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