Great to win the league, but...

The Roughyeds star writes for Chron Sport

SUNDAY’S game is like a Grand Final. It carries the same promotion prize we’ve been gunning for all year.

It’s a straight shoot-out, first versus second. It will be a good game and I’m looking forward to it.

It was a surreal feeling on Saturday against Oxford. We had won the league and that’s great. We deserve a lot of credit for that, but our goal is promotion. We’ve got a chance to do that on Sunday and I’m pretty confident we will.

I think we are in a better position than in previous seasons. If you look at the teams we’ve beaten on this run of ours, we’ve taken some big scalps along the way.

The mood in the camp is good. I said that last year and it counted for nothing, but there is definitely a different feel about the place this time.

There is a lot less talk among the players. Whether that’s because we’re more relaxed I don’t know.

It’s the third time in this situation for some of us under Scott Naylor. We’ve also got people like Adam Neal, Gareth Owen and Will Hope, who have all come in this year with a bit of Super League experience.

Not only have they played in the league above, they’ve played two leagues above, so their knowledge is massive. They are not the biggest talkers, but when they’re on the pitch, they seem to do the right things at the right time and that can only be good for us.

Scott has said the only time he was disappointed with us was the first 40 minutes away at Keighley earlier this year. When they came to our place, we gave a true account of ourselves and won.

The supporters are our 18th man. They’re fantastic. In the Swinton game, the Keighley game and all the big games at home, they have got right behind us.

In the closing stages of a match, when we seem to be finding our groove, they give us that extra push. It’s a massive boost.

We’re not over confident, though. We know it’s going to be a good game and a tough one. Keighley have some good players back and I think it will a different Keighley to the one we played last time at Whitebank.

Still, I’m confident of beating any team on our own patch.