Widnes Vikings forward Aaron Brown insists his side cannot underestimate Dewsbury Rams, as they prepare for Sunday’s showdown in the Betfred Challenge Cup fourth round.
The Vikings make the visit to FLAIR Stadium, having returned to winning ways last week against Newcastle Thunder.
Meanwhile, the Rams have made a good start to their Betfred League 1 campaign, sitting top of the league after winning all four of their matches. In the process, they have scored 165 points and conceded just 38.
The Rams were relegated from the Betfred Championship last year, and Brown admits the squad will be treating it as they would any other league fixture.
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“Dewsbury are going really well in League 1 and they’ve just put 50-odd points on Rochdale,” he said.
“They’ve got a lot of experienced Championship players, so we know it’ll be tough.
“It’s a small pitch and they know how to play it, so we can’t we can’t underestimate them because it could come back to bite us.
“We’re going into it with all the respect for them, and playing them as if we were playing a high-level Championship team.”
Despite going in search of back-to-back wins, Brown believes the squad will be out to give a much better account of themselves following last week’s 24-16 win against Newcastle.
Reflecting on that match, the 30-year-old said: “To be honest, we spoke about a bit of a reaction from the Toulouse game, and I thought we went about it quite nicely.
“It was a tough battle in the middle, to be fair. Newcastle brought a bit of fight and we knew they were going to because they’re near the bottom of the league and trying to get the wins in.
“We were 24 points up, but then we fell off towards the end. That was the only bad part of the game really, letting them score three tries at the death.
“In the changing room after, everyone was disappointed. To keep them out for so long and then to just fall away in the last 10 minutes, it wasn’t like us as a team.”
This season, Brown has featured five times for the Vikings and was also named as 18th man on two further occasions.
He returned to the side for their previous Challenge Cup outing, an 80-4 victory against Wests Warriors in Round 3.
Having impressed in that fixture, Brown has gone on to be named in the starting line-up for the two most recent league outings.
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Brown believes cup competitions provide the perfect opportunity for players on the fringes of the first team to put themselves into John Kear’s plans moving forward.
“I was one of those players who ended up getting a chance in the cup, and John has stuck with me now,” he added.
“For anyone coming in, it’s always an opportunity to put your best foot forward, get into that squad and cement your place.
“With anyone who gets a shot this week, we’ve got a squad full of quality players and I’m sure they’ll do a really good job.”
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