Rugby League: Mccormack Happy With the Rail Diversion En Route to Headingley

Widnes and Castleford will stage the second battle in their phoney war in tomorrow's Northern Rail Cup semi-finals, with neither club attempting to deny that the only match between the two that really matters this season remains almost four months away. It is the Co-operative National League grand final at Headingley on October 7 - the game that determines promotion to the Super League - rather than the Northern Rail final at Blackpool's Bloomfield Road in mid-July that remains the overwhelming priority for both the Vikings coach, Steve McCormack, and his Tigers counterpart, Terry Matterson.

But McCormack knows from experience that victory tomorrow, especially after a surprisingly convincing 44-20 win in the teams' league meeting at Castleford in May, would crank up the pressure on Matterson while giving Widnes a real lift for the rest of the summer. They took a while to recover from a 54-12 home thrashing in last year's quarter-finals by the Leigh team who went on to win the cup, and have therefore treated the knockout competition much more seriously this season.

"We all know what's coming later on but the Northern Rail has got a bit of momentum behind it in the last couple of years," said McCormack, who has lost in three consecutive grand finals - in 2004 and 2005 with Whitehaven before Widnes were denied promotion at the final hurdle by Hull KR last autumn - but has never reached Bloomfield Road in a professional capacity. "I went to the cup final last year helping out with a radio commentary. It's established now as a great day out in Blackpool in the middle of summer and, as players, supporters or coaches, you don't get many opportunities to play in finals."

Matterson was stunned by his players' inability to handle Widnes at The Jungle last month, and will look for a more composed performance from the former Hull scrum-half Danny Brough tomorrow. The veteran New Zealand forward Awen Guttenbeil returns to lead the pack but Brough's former Hull team-mate Peter Lupton is out with a hamstring injury.

The promotion rivals are likely to meet twice more before their expected grand final meeting, with a return league match at Widnes in August and a qualifying playoff to take the direct route to the Headingley decider if they do finish first and second in the final table. But the teams in tomorrow's other semi-final, Whitehaven and Halifax, will hope to have something to say about that, with Halifax confirming their dark-horse credentials by ending Widnes' unbeaten league record with a stirring 12-6 win in dreadful conditions at The Shay recently.

"You'd probably have to say that was the kick up the backside we needed, although I don't want to take anything away from Halifax because they played the conditions really well," said McCormack, who lost the wing Dean Gaskell with a foot injury in that match. Halifax have already lost twice at Whitehaven this season - once in the league and once in the Challenge Cup.

"Those games mean nothing " was the predictable response of Dave Rotheram, the Cumbrian club's coach, pointing to the huge improvement in Halifax's kicking game since they scavenged the stand-off Graham Holroyd from Doncaster Lakers. The highlight of a full Second Division program sees the former Great Britain scrum-half Andy Gregory return to the game after an eight-year absence - although Barrow are daunting opposition for his fi rst game as coach of the struggling Blackpool Panthers, who have not won for 25 matches going back to last July.