Skillful Workington Town hooker Graeme Mattinson is hoping he will be able to hold his hand up for the opening clash of the Championship season on Sunday.

Mattinson underwent a close season operation on his right shoulder and is closing in on a return but he admits he only has a 50/50 chance of featuring against Sheffield, ko 3pm at the Zebra Claims Stadium.

"I need to keep testing my shoulder with contact and see how it reacts," said Mattinson. "I would probably rate myself as 50/50 at the moment.

"We have got a few injuries going into the start of the season so we may struggle a little early on but everyone is raring to get going.

"I think we will do alright once we have everyone back and fit."

Town will be without Jarrad Stack, Brett Phillips, Marc Shackley, Jarrod Sammut, Tom Walker, Alex Szostak and Latu Fifita for the Sheffield clash through injury and suspension.

"We have a few players carrying knocks but we have had a similar team for the last couple of seasons and we are all comfortable with each other," added Mattinson.

"Oliver Gordon and Ryan Verlinden have both came along and fitted right in and Jarrod Sammut was with us at the end of last year and fitted in well."

This season the Championship sees more teams going down the full time route, Sheffield included and that makes the competition even tougher.

Mattinson said: "It definitely makes it tough. A few of our lads, myself included, work shifts and you sometimes come off nights and go right to play rugby.

"These lads do nothing but train and play so it makes a big difference at the end of the day.

"There are a lot of good teams in this league but this is where we want to be playing and testing ourselves against the best.

"As a team we want to do better than we did last year and to keep on improving. We have a good coach and every week we should be getting better."