WEST Bowling will welcome a tough tie in the Coral Challenge Cup when they face a side who have lost only one game in two years.

The Bradford outfit visit Pennine League leaders Ovenden in the second round this Saturday after coming through their first round tie with Hammersmith Hills Hoists.

Bowling boss Ryan Hunkin is expecting a physical battle but is looking forward to the test.

The coach said: "The speed of National Conference rugby is really really fast and we have got some players who play skilful rugby at speed.

"We want to match that up with a physical presence in the game and I think this will be perfect for us leading up to the Askam game (Bowling's first league fixture).

He added: "Again, we're going to totally respect them, they're not going to be mugs. They're top of the Pennine League in a strong division, I believe they've only lost one game in two years. Now you don't get to that sort of status without being some sort of team."

Ovenden have only lost once in 17 games since September 9, 2017 and didn't lose a single game during the 2015/16 season.

Hunkin said: "We're confident in what we can do and really confident in the players we've got, but we're going to respect them the same.

"We're not going to underestimate what they can do just because they're in the Pennine League. That's not the way we do things."

Bowling play Cumbria-based side Askam on March 2 in the first game of the National Conference Division Two season, and Hunkin admits while the cup remains important, doing well in the league is the priority.

He said: "There has always been the ambition to go as far as we can in the cup, it's just it's essentially a set of pre-season games, that lead us into the league.

"That's just where it sits in our build-up. It would probably have a bit more importance to us if it was in the middle of our season and we were firing on all cylinders.

"We are very much building. Looking back at the Hammersmith game, there was rusty parts of the game in attack and certainly in defence, but we are building and getting better and better and we want to be aiming for a really really strong performance at that first game of the season."

Bowling will go into the game with a clean bill of health, after only a couple of minor knocks and strains from the first-round tie.

Hunkin said: "We've had a good two weeks to build up and we're getting really good numbers at training and, as well as looking forward to the Ovenden challenge, we've got, again, the A team who want to put a strong, competitive team out against Queensbury (in the Bradford Cup) as well, so there are really good things at the minute as a club and exciting times. We're ready for it."