Workington Town prop forward Kris Coward believes his side are well prepared for this weekend's Championship opener against Sheffield Eagles.

Town welcome the Eagles to Zebra Claims Stadium on Sunday for round one of the new season and, although the Eagles have gone full-time, Coward says he and his team-mates can take a lot of positives out of their pre-season performances.

"Sheffield have gone full-time and have also had a few friendlies, but they have been quite slow starters in the past couple of seasons," Coward said. "We need to get in the arm-wrestle early on and get on top of them.

"Our defence has been good so far, even though the games have just been pre-season fixtures.

"Whitehaven have got a big pack and Barrow have as well, so the trial games were a good test for us.

"Nobody likes coming up here and it's a big boost for us playing our first game of the season at home."

Coward played in both of Town's pre-season games and despite a third fixture with Newcastle Thunder being cancelled, the veteran prop says his side are ready for Sunday's game.

"We had two hard games, so it wasn't too bad not having a third," he continued. "We still trained on Saturday morning and had a really tough session.

"We're at the stage now where we can't wait to start the season properly.

"The games helped us dust off the cobwebs but it won't be until the league starts that we know where we're at.

"I do think that we'll cause some upsets this year though, everyone's looking good and we've still got a few players to come back from injury.

"Shack [Marc Shackley] and Latu [Fifita] aren't too far off returning and we've got Ryan Verlinden who has settled right in too."