On the back of six consecutive losses to open the campaign, Crusaders will be hoping to finally break their duck as they travel to Midlands Hurricanes on Sunday.
It’s been a stop-start spell for the side, with their only match in the last six weeks resulting in a 32-18 loss at Rochdale Hornets.
Tries from Pat Rainford, Josh Lynch, Rob Massam and Jack Houghton did keep the Cru in touch in that contest.
Speaking to CruCast this week, Crusaders’ head coach Carl Forster said: “There’s been a lot of soul searching in the last three, four weeks.
“Obviously, we’ve had a bit of inconsistency with the schedule of four weeks off and then we go again and then, you know, you want to get back on the horse and you get another weekend off and it’s been pretty frustrating.
“But me, the staff, the boys, we’ve had a bit of soul searching, like I say, and we’ve had a good chat and we, as coaches, have highlighted where we’re going wrong and to be fair to the boys, they’ve not blamed anyone but themselves.”
Victory for Crusaders on their travels should move them out of the bottom-three and Forster added: “We’ve sat down and we drew a kind of a mini review of where we’re at and what we’ve been doing right, wrong, inconsistent and like I said to the boys, they’re a very quiet group, but come that Tuesday after the Rochdale game, they were quite vocal, which was nice to see and they put their concerns to me, I put my concerns to them and the main thing is we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.
“It’s just about putting that action on the field on a consistent basis, but we know we’ve got to turn it around.”
In Sunday’s match of the day, unbeaten leaders Dewsbury Rams go to third-placed Oldham, while Doncaster, who are second, welcome basement side London Skolars.
There are away days for Cornwall and Workington Town, to Rochdale Hornets and Hunslet respectively.
The Challenge Cup takes centre stage this weekend with three all-Super League clashes lined up tomorrow.
Leaders Warrington head to Catalans Dragons, second-placed Wigan visit Leeds and Salford are at home to Huddersfield.
On Sunday, Castleford host Hull while London Broncos head to York City Knights.