Craig Lingard targets Sheffield Eagles playoff spot ahead of Rochdale showdown
Craig Lingard addressed the Betfred Championship playoff hopes that are held by his Sheffield Eagles’ side in an interview earlier this week with the club’s media team, and how this Sunday’s home fixture against Rochdale Hornets can continue their top 6 dreams.
With their 2026 campaign coming into its latter stages, and with multiple runs in a row as of recently, the Eagles will be favourites to make their way into the playoffs after their disappointing run last season. Speaking on these top 6 hopes, head coach Craig Lingard remarked, “We have talked about it for a number of weeks now. We'd identified the five games just to see if we could have that block of five and get five out of five.
“If we get five wins, then we thought we'd be successful in ending up in the top 10 and potentially have the chance to try and get in the top six. We have accomplished four so far, and we are now fully focused on Rochdale on Sunday.
“I think looking at the league table, I think if we get this win this weekend, then we're pretty much guaranteed to be in the playoffs, so we need to keep the pressure on the teams above us.
“We're looking maybe for a little bit of a favour or two from other teams, but if we don't win our own games, I don't think any other games make any difference.
“So, we need to just keep focusing on those and keep winning as many games as we can.”
Despite last weekend’s huge 38-12 victory over Workington Town, Craig still believes there are areas in the Eagles’ game that must be improved should they progress past Rochdale this weekend. He said, “You know, there are areas of this game where we can get better, and as I mentioned on Sunday after the game, that's our focus now.
“Week in and week out, we are identifying the areas that we've not been quite as good as where we need to be in certain areas. And you know, I think we're very, very close.
“If we tighten up a few of these little areas where it's within our control, as well, if we can do that, then we've got the potential in this group to be so much better.”
He also added, “I think it's impossible to get a a perfect 80-minute performance, but you know, you strive to try and get that, and the more you strive to get that, there's a potential to get a real good game out of it, and I think for us it's increasing the amount of time where we're good and decreasing the amount of time where we're not so good.
“I think there's parts of our game where the good parts are 9 out of 10, 10 out of 10, and the bad parts are two or three out of 10.
“So we need to make sure that our bad parts are a six out of 10 at the lowest, and you know, if we can do that, and sort of shorten the the parts of the game where we aren't particularly great, and extend the parts where we're pretty good, then as I say, we've got the potential in this group to have a real good run.”
New additions and returns to the squad have been a crucial element of the Eagles’ ascending momentum and success, which Craig attributes to a few key players. Commenting on this, he stated, “As I have mentioned previously, with bringing Greg Eden in, he's given us a little bit of a different dynamic in attack, and some of the combinations have been there.
“I think Jack Bussey coming back in has helped us well. But I think just some of our resilience and the way that we can come out in the second half after a not particularly good first half and see some teams off doing it a couple of times in the last few weeks now.
“But it would be nice to have a really good dominant first half, so we're not in that position at half time now; we have to go in and sort of reassess and tell them what we need to focus on, the areas that we've talked about pre-game, and sort of nail everything.”
Adding further detail on the differences in his squad from the beginning of the year to the current late stages, he commented, “Teams change, teams evolve as you go through the season, and I think it's been that long since we have played them that they'll be different, and we are certainly different to what we were when we were last time.
“You know, we had Jordan Lilley playing, and we had Matty Marsh playing in game one. You know, so those two have not played for a number of weeks now, so we're a completely different team to what we were then, as of our roster.
“And you're looking at some of their players that have played our last few weeks didn't play against us last time, so you know, I I think that's why it's important not to go back too far and think that we can do exactly the same as we did last time, or they're going to have exactly the same sort of game plan as they had last time. And you know, we've got to look at the more recent games that they've played.”
There will be some players that made an appearance last weekend that will unfortunately miss out on this Sunday’s fixture. Highlighting these injuries and concerns, Craig added, “Lewis Peachey will definitely be out. He failed his HIA, so he will definitely be out. It's the second one as well this year, so he needs to see a specialist now, and we will see how long that takes him to get back.
“Connor Fitzsimmons wasn't injured, you know; it was just a case of the rotation. We couldn't get him back on because we had two unplanned rotations, which means that it limits who you can get on the field. And I just thought with the weather as it was and it would be Fitzy's first game back, I didn't know how long he'd be able to potentially go to finish the game off.
“But when you've got George Griffin, you've got Jack Bussey, you've got Martyn Reilly, and I think we were down to two rotations with about 25 minutes left in the game, so we needed to make sure that we got through that as best we could.
“So, you know, it will be good to go again this week, and hopefully now Connor Fitzsimmons is in, he's improved and got a little bit more confidence in him from that first 20 minutes that he had. So, you know, we're in a decent position.”
Much like the Eagles, Rochdale have been a team that has had an inconsistent season in regards to form, but with some huge wins under their belt, the belief that they may be an easy 2 points should be heavily reconsidered coming into the fixture. Giving praise to his opponents, Craig explained, “I think sometimes you can see you can look at a scoreline from the previous game and think, oh, they’ve been beaten by 40 points, and then believe it's going to be an easy game.
“It's not. You know, that's sometimes a negative that we play a team after they've had a bad beating because they want to set the wrongs right and show that's not them.
“We've been done by Rochdale this year; they tore us apart at their place, and I would imagine that they'll be looking at doing exactly the same this week. They've got a lot of class in their halfbacks, a lot of strike out wide as well, and they like to play. So, our edges this week need to be on guard.”
He added, “You prep for the best version of Rochdale now. So, we'll be showing the clips to the players where they've been very, very good.
“We'll also be showing the clips to the players of where we believe that we could potentially catch them. That's not always going to happen.
“You've got to prep as best you can and prep for the best version of Rochdale that's going to come, and the best version of Rochdale is a team that likes to attack, and they can score some tries and put some points on the board, as they did last time that we played.
“Twice we have played them, and they've scored 50-odd points against us in two games, which is too many for us.
“As I said, we're just trying to get better week in week out and identify the areas of the games where we need to improve from last week. One of our key areas to focus on from the previous fixture is that our kick chase wasn't particularly great at the end of sets in the right areas. So, that's certainly an area where we can start our defensive sets a little bit better.”