Stuart Howarth has made himself available for Sunday’s crunch game in League One at Oldham.

The experienced Howarth trained with the squad on Wednesday despite suffering a hairline fracture of his arm at Bradford last Saturday.

Provided there was no reaction at last night’s session Howarth, who joined Haven from Workington Town in the winter, will be in the team to take on the Roughyeds.

It’s a game that both coaches, Haven’s Carl Forster and Oldham’s Scott Naylor have labelled a “must win” as the clubs are involved in a four-way tie for fourth place in the table.

Howarth typifies the spirit in the Whitehaven camp and there could be another boost for the squad if Papua New Guinea star Dion Aiye declares himself ready to rejoin the action.

He has been missing since suffering a bicep injury in the dramatic win at Derwent Park against Workington Town.

“Dion has trained for the last few sessions and is close to playing again. I’m hoping that both he and Stuart will be in the squad at Oldham.

“Stuart said from the start that he would play despite his injury but we had to see how he went in training.

“He put his hand up to play afterwards and now we will just assess him as late as possible to confirm he’s ready.

“Lewis Brown had a shoulder problem but he’s ok again and Dan Abram will be having an injection in a problem ankle so we will make another late decision on him as well,” said Forster.

The coach says that both the amateur signings Jordan Thomson and Jordan Herve will be in the squad of 19. Thomson, in particular, earned glowing praise for his efforts last week at Bradford.

Oldham have no serious injury concerns as they bid to cement fourth place with the best scoring differential of the teams currently sharing that place. With seven tries in the three games since he returned from injury, second row forward Danny Langtree has opened up a clear-cut lead at the top of Oldham’s try-scoring list this season.

He now totals 17 – six more than his nearest challengers Dave Hewitt and Zack McComb.

Langtree ran in four against North Wales, one at Doncaster and two at Hemel. He has now scored more tries in a season than any other Oldham second-row forward since the new club was launched for the start of the 1998 season.

“He’s enjoying his best-ever season,” said coach Scott Naylor, of the former St Helens junior, who is in his eighth season at the club, having spent 2011 and 2012 in the Roughyeds’ reserves.

He was withdrawn at half-time at Hemel because of a rib complaint, but both the player and Naylor confirmed afterwards that it was merely a precautionary move with this Sunday’s big game against Whitehaven in mind.