CHORLEY Lynx face a crucial basement battle in the Northern Ford Premiership on Sunday when they entertain rock bottom Gateshead Thunder at Victory Park (3.0).

This is Lynx's first home game for five weeks, when they defeated Workington Town in the National League Cup.

Since then they have suffered three consecutive league defeats at Hunslet, Sheffield and Workington.

Coach Graeme West is disappointed that they came away with nothing from the Hunslet and Sheffield games after dominating most of the matches.

Last weekend they took an injury hit squad to Workington and suffered a 38-12 reversal with most of the damage being done in the first half.

Lynx were missing eight players from their squad through injury and they picked up two more in the game with Simon Smith suffering concussion and newcomer Lee Connolly pulling a hamstring in the pre match warm up and unable to take any part in the game.

West is confident that Liam Jones, Dean Cross and Mike Prescott will be fit to return but Chris Ramsdale is still two weeks away from resuming while Sarfraz Patel still has two games of a suspension to serve. Steve Heaton and Ian Speed keep their places in the squad after making their debuts at Workington.

Gateshead are currently rock bottom with just one point from a draw against Featherstone early in the season. Since then their very existence has been threatened as they struggled with severe financial problems.

They released all their Yorkshire-based players along with coach Andy Kelly. Currently they are being coached by Paul Fletcher, who is connected to Super League outfit Leeds Rhinos.

CHORLEY LYNX (from): Wilcock, Ormesher, Cross, Jones, Yates, Close, Gambles, Street, Roden, Parry, Prescott, Hamilton, Bloor, Kilgannon, Crouthers, Grundy, Speed, Heaton, Killock, Causey, Stewart.