HEAD coach Eddie Harris is hoping that his Warrington Wizards side can start their rise up the National League Three table when they entertain Sheffield Hillsborough Hawks at Wilderspool on Saturday.

Wizards endured a nightmare start to the season with defeats in each of their first three games, but a 42-18 win at Gateshead Storm on Saturday halted their barren run, and Harris believes they can now build on that in the match versus Sheffield Hillsborough, which kicks off at 2.30pm.

He said: "The Gateshead game came at a good time for us. It enabled the lads to restore their confidence after the previous three games, and with the horrific injury list that we have, I was just delighted to finally get off the mark.

"We had winger Mark Cosgrove playing his first game for almost two years, Dave Kelly returning from injury a week earlier than we would have liked.

"But the lads showed how committed they are by going out and doing the business, and hopefully we can now kick on and move up the table."

Wizards galloped to a comfortable victory against Gateshead with a strong second-half performance after they had taken a 14th-minute lead when Ryan Simpson's try replied to an early Storm penalty.

Jamie Clarke then went over from dummy half to make it 10-2 before Cosgrove squeezed over in the corner for a try on his long-awaited return.

After the break Scott Gandy surged through a gap to score between the posts, and the match was over as a contest when Matt Taylor ran in another Wizards try after collecting a pass from man of the match Craig Harris.

Wizards then wrapped up a richly deserved victory as efforts from Alan Kilshaw and Dave Kelly followed Simpson's second of the match.

Wizards: Ryan Simpson; Mark Cosgrove, Andy Addison, Jon Cole, Dave Kelly; Craig Harris, Steven Smythe; Luke Worsley, Mick Princic, Neil Smith, Jamie Clarke, Matt Taylor, Alan Kilshaw. Subs: Scott Gandy, Lee Rushton, Craig Sutton, Iain Fowler.