Coach Gary Moorby will look to shake things up a little for tomorrow's trip to Gateshead Thunder after three costly errors undermined the Cougars' solid display against Dewsbury last Sunday.

Maverick stand-off Paul Ashton comes back into contention, as does skipper James Rushforth and prop Danny Ekis, who turned out for the under-21 academy side against Leeds last night.

And Moorby is not ruling out making some drastic positional changes after the Cougars gave up two intercept tries and wing Andy Robinson conceded a costly one-on-one strip in the 28-14 LHF Healthplan National League Two loss to the Rams.

"We played well for a lot of that game," said Moorby.

"We went forward well, moved the ball around well and did well at the ruck area, which was something we'd worked on a lot.

"There was a question mark about our finishing but, when you analyse it, two interceptions and a stolen ball cost us really dearly.

"We defended very, very well. There was one soft try at the beginning but the rest of our defensive effort was pretty solid.

"Stuart Calvert, in particular, put in an awesome defensive effort. Last year it was obviously a big problem so hopefully we can kick on from here."

Easy beats at the start of the season, Gateshead now loom as

an entirely different prospect after posting a record 57-32 over Swinton Lions last Sunday.

Last week's defeat by Dewsbury saw the Cougars slip out of the play-off places after being leap-frogged by Sheffield, who backed up their crushing defeat of Dewsbury with a narrow win over Workington at the weekend.

With Sheffield and Gateshead now hitting their straps, Moorby knows victory tomorrow is crucial. "We have got to get it right and tomorrow won't be any easier," he said.

"I've managed to get hold of a video of Gateshead playing Swin-ton and I am quite impressed with them.

"They are a decent side but Swinton allowed them to play quick on them and we need to make sure that they don't do that to us.

"If we can nullify that and slow their go-forward down I think we can be optimistic."

Thunder coach Dean Thomas has been forced to make three changes to the side that eclipsed the club's previous best victory - a 50-20 drubbing of London Skol-ars in 2003.

Dominic Martinez comes in at prop for Leroy Day, who has returned to Australia, while Joe Burley is replaced by Steve Ruth-erford and Graham Stephenson comes in at full back.