NORTH WALES CRUSADERS coach Anthony Murray says that a solid Challenge Cup run could give the club a much-needed cash boost.

The Cru visit League One rivals London Skolars on Sunday for their third round tie, with the Wrexham club chasing their first victory of the 2019 campaign.

Murray is desperate to take his side as far as possible in this year’s competition and says that progressing into later rounds could prove to be lucrative.

He said: “The Challenge Cup is a great competition and one that all clubs, whatever their level, love being involved in each season. There’s a massive amount of history and tradition wrapped up in it and in the early stages you’ve got community level clubs all looking to bag themselves a game against a bigger rival.

“There’s the financial aspect too, because in the later rounds you can find yourselves up against Championship and Super League clubs. We might only play a small part in the competition - but if we can get past London and into the fourth round then potentially we could be face one of the bigger sides and who knows. When it gets to that stage there are bigger crowds and bigger revenues and that would certainly help a club in our position.”

The Cru coach expects a stern test at the New River Stadium against an ‘unpredictable’ Skolars side, who beat West Wales Raiders in their league opener before a 48-12 reverse to Newcastle last weekend.

Encouraged by his own side’s display in the galling 16-14 home reverse to Oldham last time out, Murray believes the performance against one of this season’s title favourites has set the standard.

“London are an unorthodox side and really unpredictable at times,” he added. “Physically they’re a big group and it’s going to be a real battle for us down there.

“We have to stop their momentum and to do that we need the type of professional performance we produced for an hour against Oldham. Overall, we’ve set the standard of where we’re capable of being. The challenge for us now is being at that standard week in, week out.

“We came unstuck because of an unfortunate interception, as those things can happen, and a penalty towards the end, so discipline is the key word for us this weekend.”

Matt Reid, Ryan Smith and Danny Price are injury doubts for Murray’s men, who are still without Tommy Johnson.