THERE may be some new faces for both teams, but Furness Raiders head coach David Cairns expects Wakefield College to be just as strong when the teams renew their rivalry at Craven Park tonight.

It was on the same ground six months ago that Wakefield secured the AoC National Cup with a 34-16 victory over Furness, a match which was the swansong for a number of the Raiders’ initial intake three seasons prior.

However, there is plenty of exciting new talent coming through for the under-19s team, including the latest group to step up to under-19s level who have helped the Raiders to three wins from their first four matches in the 2018/19 College Rugby League Premier Division season.

The visitors, who are linked with Super League side Wakefield Trinity, have three wins from three so far as well and Furness head coach Cairns is well-aware the importance of keeping good players coming through.

“All of the teams get a turnover of players, but normally the strong teams are turning over players all of the time,” said Cairns.

“You might have lost a few good players, but you’ve got good lads coming in behind them and we’re pretty good that was as well.

“We have good lads coming in all the time and strength builds strength. The better players you have in your squad, I think the ones coming into it get that little step up.

“When you get a young lad who is 18, and he goes to train with a team like Wigan or Leeds, training with those internationals, it brings people on and we’ve got to keep those levels really good.”

Furness go into the game on the back of a two-week break, having secured a convincing 44-10 win at home to the Warrington Wolves side from Priesley College last time out.

That time off has allowed Cairns to get the Furness squad together for two extra training sessions in order to work on developing the squad’s skills and positional play.

“With a game coming up when you only have one night, you’ve got to get your gameplan in order,” said Cairns.

“But when you’ve got two weeks with four training sessions, you can work on all sorts of things and we’ve had decent numbers.

“What we try to do is work on all aspects. This way, we can work on a wide range of skills - defence, attack, technique and all sorts of things. It’s just development rather than anything groundbreaking.

“It’s just a case of working on very basic things and doing everything right. We don’t try to over-complicate things and it’s so easy to do that.”