KEIGHLEY are set to welcome back scrum half Lucas Uren for their second successive away game in SSE Yorkshire Division Two on Saturday.

Director of rugby Graeme Sheffield admitted that, ideally, they would have left it a little longer to thrust the pint-sized half-back into the first-team fray after 15 months out following a knee reconstruction, but that it is a case of needs must.

Uren is not the only experienced player set to return after Keighley's opening-day 17-10 defeat at Goole as back Alan Ebbrell is in contention after being unavailable last week.

After two straight relegations, a defeat to start 2014-15 is not what the doctor ordered. Sheffield called the result "disappointing" and expects Knottingley to have a similar uncompromising attitude on Saturday to Goole.

"Last weekend was different to the week before when we played Kirkby Lonsdale, who are at a higher level than us and allowed us to play," he said.

"Goole had a very forward-oriented game and we expect the same at Knottingley.

But until the last two or three years, we have been a forward-oriented club and it is only recently that we have had a set of backs that have often outplayed our forwards.

"The plus from last weekend was that we asked a lot of young men to step up to the plate, and we actually won the second half. But sometimes it seems like it never rains but it pours."