IT will be a squad game when North Wales Crusaders aim to continue their League One winning run away to Cornwall on Sunday.

Carl Forster’s side will be aiming to make it three wins on the bounce as the quest continues to book a spot in the end-of-season play-offs.

Crusaders continued their promising run with a 42-4 success away to Newcastle Thunder last time out, but the fifth triumph of the season did come at a cost.

Head coach Forster told CruCast: “To be honest, the win came at a significant cost at the weekend.

“Obviously, we lost Reidy (Matt Reid), he’ll be a number of weeks. We’ve lost Liam Cooper, who’s obviously on loan from Swinton.

“He took a bang on his shoulder that he got operated on last year. We still don’t know the extent of that, but if he played this week, I’d be very, very surprised.

“Ben Lane’s been called back to Saints and, obviously, Rob Massam won’t be available due to Steph is due to give birth any time now.

“Adam Carr is serving his one-match suspension this week. So, there will be a minimum five changes to the team this week.

“It’s my job, obviously, to get the best 17 out on the field and that’s what the concentration is from now until then.”

One positive is that Pat Ah Van, who sat out the win over Newcastle Thunder, is fit and available for the trek to Cornwall.

“Not to be negative, because I’ll always be confident in our group, we will probably be down to our last 16, 17 players this weekend and that’s including myself,” added Forster.

“I’ve been looking after myself since I’ve been injured, so there’s no kind of issues there.

“But, if we want to put 17 on the field, I’ll be swapping the coach’s hut for the boots this weekend.”

While Crusaders began their league season with a 40-16 win away to Cornwall to open the league season, Forster won’t be taking anything for granted on Sunday.

“We had a tough game down there first game of the season,” he said.

“I don’t think the scoreline showed that, because we were 22-0 up at half-time, but the second half, I think they might have won by two or we won by two in the second half and you look at the Keighley game at the weekend.

“You know, Keighley got a decent enough lead, but the second half was only 8-0 to Keighley. So, they’re certainly competing with teams.

“They’ve won a couple this year. They’ve beat Midlands. Midlands beat us.

“So, you can’t afford to take any of these teams lightly and our preparation as coaching staff, as players certainly won’t be anything less than if we were playing Oldham, Keighley, Workington, etc.”

Crusaders are also in talks with Halifax in an effort to extend Ollie Davies’ loan spell with North Wales.

Fifth-placed Midlands Hurricanes, who are level on points with Crusaders, head to Newcastle on Sunday, while leaders Oldham play host to Hunslet.

Keighley Cougars, who are second, go to Anthony Murray’s Workington Town.