Whitehaven will be without second-row forward Brett Phillips for Sunday’s Challenge Cup-tie.

Phillips has picked-up a one game ban for tripping an opponent in the Championship game at London Broncos.

The incident had been put on report by the referee and came as Broncos scored a try, which was subsequently disallowed for crossing.

The RFL’s review panel reviewed the incident and decided that Phillips’ actions deserved a one match suspension.

Whitehaven are also bracing themselves for a ban on full-back Sam Forrester, who was yellow carded for a trip in Sunday’s Championship game with Oldham.

Any suspension would be after Sunday’s Challenge Cup clash with Dewsbury, so Forrester will be eligible to face the Rams.

That was one of the most controversial incidents of the game as the resulting penalty try helped Oldham to a 16-14 victory.

Many people had not spotted the award, including the Whitehaven bench.

Haven team manager Des Byrne said: "It was about five or six minutes afterwards when I was told by the fourth official that the referee had awarded the penalty try.

"I then had to ring our announcer who contacted the scoreboard operators to change it.

"Actually talking to people who were closer to the incident than us they felt it was a harsh decision as Jason Mossop and Jake Moore were there behind Sam when he made the trip so it wasn’t a certain try.”

Ex-Whitehaven player, Dan Abram, was the man brought down, and he got up to put over the conversion – one of four goals he landed.

Meanwhile Haven’s thoughts are now focused on the Cup clash with Dewsbury.

The Rams were given a major pre-Cup boost when they scored their first Championship win on Tuesday night.

It was a spectacular one, too, as they picked up a fine 18-16 win at Yorkshire rivals, Halifax.

In a scrappy contest referee Cameron Worsley reduced Fax to 11 men for eight minutes, sin-binning Kevin Larroyer and Ed Barber, then red carding home full-back Scott Grix and Rams hooker Dominic Speakman just before half-time.

A late try from Andy Gabriel, converted by Paul Sykes, clinched the points after Matty Gee had scored a try in the first half.

Haven’s Byrne said: “I was just looking at the Dewsbury squad and they have almost a dozen new faces so the squad has really been freshened-up.”

The Rams also have a dual-registration agreement with the Super League club Hull KR.