Whitehaven’s Brett Carter could be set for his first Championship appearance of the season on Sunday.

The former Workington Town and Barrow back has been out for a month with a hamstring problem.

He was injured in the Ike Southward Memorial Trophy game on January 19 and missed the final warm-up match with North Wales Crusaders.

After being an absentee for the opening Championship fixtures with Swinton Lions and London Broncos, Carter is primed for his competitive debut.

He had returned to training last week but was feeling the hamstring afterwards so was kept on the sidelines on Sunday.

Carter trained on Wednesday and head coach Gary Charlton will be hoping there’s no further reaction.

South Cumbrian Carter was among six players unable to travel to London where Haven put up a brave fight before going down 36-20.

Karl Dixon will definitely be back in the firing line as he had a long-arranged commitment on Sunday.

But the other four absentees are almost certainly going to miss-out again - Glenn Riley (knee cap), Sam Dowsett (hamstring), Chris Taylor (knee) and Connor Holliday (hamstring).

Haven team manager Des Byrne said: “Callum [Phillips] took a bit of a stinger in the game at London and had to come off for a bit but he trained well on Wednesday and we expect no problems.

“They actually trained under the newly installed floodlights in midweek and it looked really good.

“I’m a bit old-fashioned in that I like floodlit games because I think they add just a little bit more atmosphere to the occasion.”

Sunday’s game against Oldham Roughyeds - being labelled as a game between the relegation favourites - will be played under lights with a 6.15pm kick-off as it is being streamed live online.

Charlton will hope that having the game broadcast to a national - and maybe even international - audience will inspire his side to victory.

Haven's fortunes this season will be decided by results in games against the likes of Oldham, not those against the top teams.

The spirit shown during the defeat to the Broncos last week will see Haven enter the game full of confidence, despite still being without a point.

Like Haven the visitors have lost both their opening games and currently sit bottom of the Championship because of having the worst points differential.

It may be early stages of the season, but the 94 points Oldham have conceded, compared to the 50 of Whitehaven, could prove to be crucial come the end of the campaign.