Brown says Eagles ‘need to improve’ as playoffs charge heats up.

The Eagles fell to a ‘disappointing’ 14-24 defeat to Batley Bulldogs last time out making it two losses on the bounce but their coach Simon Brown is hopeful the team can return to their early season form as the fight for playoffs spots heats up.

On the loss against Batley, coach Simon Brown said: “we need to improve because we’ve got a tough run in [for the] back end of the year, it’s tough for us.”

“[losing to] Batley was disappointing, we were flat it looked like we were riding on some emotion but we just need to get a bit of clarity on what we want to do going forward.”

The South Yorkshire side will be looking to make it two wins from two against the Vikings this season after defeating the Cumbrian side 30-21 at home in June.

However, the Vikings will make for some fierce opposition as they are looking to claim their first win over the Eagles since 2021 where they claimed a 30-20 home victory.

On their trip to Widnes, Brown said: “It’ll be a fast-flowing game they play a good brand [of rugby] we’ve watched quite a bit of footage on them and they’re doing a good job there”

“We’re still third, should’ve could’ve would’ve, but we need to take one game at a time attack them and move on focus and go again at Toulouse […] and that’s what we’re doing this week we’re just concentrating on Widnes.”

Sheffield have made two changes to their 21-man squad ahead of this weekend’s trip with Matty Dawson-Jones and Aaron Murphy come back into contention.

The winger and second rower will replace Bayley Liu and Oliver Roberts as the side look to claim their 14th victory of the season in round 21 of the Betfred Championship.

On the team, Brown said: “We’re confident like we have been all year, we’ve had a few days off [as] we want to reset and go again and attack the back end of the year”

“We’ve got to come back refreshed and we’ve got to make a choice now and we’re looking forward to seeing what that choice will be.”

The two sides will face off at the DCBL Stadium in Widnes at 3 pm on Sunday 25th August with Sheffield looking to defeat the Vikings for the sixth consecutive time.