{"id":399883,"date":"2026-01-08T14:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T14:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399883\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T14:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T14:25:09","slug":"craig-lingard-encouraged-by-early-sheffield-eagles-signs-total-rugby-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399883\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Lingard encouraged by early Sheffield Eagles signs \u2013 Total Rugby League"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

SHEFFIELD EAGLES boss Craig Lingard, who once appeared on the vocabulary-testing TV show Countdown, has borrowed a word from a former football manager as he continues to prepare his reshaped squad for the challenge of the new merged second tier.<\/p>\n

Iain Dowie memorably coined the term bouncebackability in the 2003-04 season when describing how his Crystal Palace team had gone from the fringes of relegation in December to winning promotion to the Premier League through the play-offs in May.<\/p>\n

After Sheffield finished a distant eleventh in the old-style Championship in a testing first season at the helm for Lingard, he is plotting a big improvement \u2013 and trying to add a healthy dose of resilience and character as well as attacking flair.<\/p>\n

The ex-Castleford chief was encouraged by the progress made on that front during the pre-Christmas run-out at Keighley, where the South Yorkshire side won 26-22<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And Lingard wants more of the same when the Eagles visit another of his old clubs Batley on Sunday \u2013 a week before their first league game away to Whitehaven.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really pleasing that some of the stuff we have been concentrating on, like how to deal with setbacks during matches, is paying off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been looking at how to bounce back when certain things happen \u2013 and at Keighley, I thought the lads did that really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were plenty of things we still need to do plenty of work on, but for a first warm-up game with a lot of new players, I was pleased.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got through a tough game against tough opponents who work really hard, and we will face more of that when the league gets going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lingard hopes fullback Matty Marsh and forwards Marcus Green and Alex Foster will face Batley after missing the Keighley clash.<\/p>\n

And trialist backs Jamie Cooke and Harley Saunders, both plucked from rugby union, could be given a further chance to impress.<\/p>\n

Championship 2026: Sheffield Eagles preview, squad and signings<\/a>Championship ins and outs: Every transfer for 2026 season<\/a>Kieran Gill looking to bring some of Bradford Bulls to new club Sheffield Eagles<\/a>Six Again: Big-name Championship signings for 2026<\/a>Sheffield Eagles hold off Keighley Cougars in first pre-season game<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SHEFFIELD EAGLES boss Craig Lingard, who once appeared on the vocabulary-testing TV show Countdown, has borrowed a word…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-399883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}