Head Coach Ian Watson was disappointed with his sides defensive display in defeat to Wigan Warriors and feels his team need to learn how to ‘turn the tide’.
He also gave his thoughts on a range of other topics.
On the performance…
We weren’t good enough defensively. We got ran and around a few too many times on our right-hand edge particularly coming out of yardage. When we put ourselves back in a position to win the game our right edge again let us down. We were disappointed in the first half when we conceded three consecutive tries. We have to know how to turn the tide there. We were completing at 44% in the first half which isn’t good enough. Our execution was poor on the back of that and defensively we let them march us. They did the basics really well and we didn’t.
On the performance in comparison with Castleford…
We were probably better in the Castleford game than we were today. Defensively I just think we’ve let ourselves down from our standards of what we normally compete at. Once we got into the lead again, we needed to up the intensity, but the likes of Dominic Manfredi and Joe Burgess got on the front foot and those two gave Wigan a big lift in the back-field. It’s up to us to deal with that and we didn’t do that well at all.
On injuries…
Ken Sio is the more serious one at the moment, he looked like he’d popped his groin. We’ll have to see what the physios say on that, but he could be looking at over a month.
On Adam Walker…
He was trying to lead the boys and when he came onto the field, he made a massive difference to us as well because he played with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. He led the way in the middles, but they were really good for the majority of the game, but we just fell down in certain areas defensively.
On Adam Lawton…
I just felt the game was getting too quick in the middle of the ruck and Adam Lawton is a big guy. We need to be controlling the ball and getting our fair share of it as well and I just thought we made some silly errors. The game wasn’t panning out in a manner in which we felt we could introduce Adam.
On Ed Chamberlain…
Ed’s a good player and he’s a good guy as well who trains really hard. He’ll be disappointed that we’ve been beaten down that right edge but as a team we’ve got to be disappointed that we got beat down that side.
Tickets for Sunday’s game against Wakefield Trinity at the Mobile Rocket Stadium are now available to purchase from the Club Ticket Office and over the phone on 0161 786 1570. For more details, click HERE.
