West Brom's Craig Dawson ready for Shane Long battle as he targets victory

Craig Dawson today set his sights on snuffing out Albion old-boy Shane Long as he targeted a key role in the club's survival fight.

Dawson is set to keep his starting place at Hull on Saturday as vice-captain Jonas Olsson begins a two-match suspension.

And the former Rochdale man, who started alongside Olsson in a new-look back three in Saturday's 2-1 win at Swansea, is looking to make his mark – starting by keeping Long quiet when the Baggies travel on Hull.

"It's a massive opportunity for me," said Dawson. "We need someone to step in and help the defence and hopefully I can do that.

"Shane is a great player and a great lad and it will be a tough task for us to keep control of him. But I'm sure we will know all his runs and his movements and it will be a good battle. We know each other. We go into every game knowing about the strikers but especially Shane."

Dawson helped Albion to their first win since New Year's Day – and only the second in 19 games – last week and Pepe Mel's first as head coach as Youssouf Mulumbu's late goal sealed the success.

But the defender has insisted Mel's men cannot become carried away with one victory.

"We all know it's only one win and we will be going into the game on Saturday trying to make it two," he said.

"The lads are confident and smiling and we will be going into the game on Saturday in good spirits.

"We worked hard and you only had to look at the reaction of the fans to see how much it meant to them, and the players going up to the fans at the end of the game.

"Hopefully on Saturday we can do the same.

"We've had two good training sessions and we're all getting ready for the weekend.

"Now the win has come everyone is happy but it's behind us now."