We can turn around poor run: Kilshaw
ROCHDALE Hornets head coach Alan Kilshaw insists that his team are capable of turning things around soon after suffering five straight league defeats.
It’s been a tough period for the club in recent weeks, with their last triumph in the Championship coming over a month ago when they won 10-9 at Featherstone Rovers.
Rochdale didn’t have a successful Easter period, after losing 42-18 at home to Sheffield Eagles on Good Friday before following that up with a very narrow 23-22 loss to Swinton Lions on Easter Monday.
It has left Hornets in eighth place in the Championship table, having taken seven points from their 11 games so far this season.
While it has been a difficult time for Kilshaw’s men, he has faith that the players have the ability to buck their ideas up.
“We need to regroup. We have the weekend off this weekend so it’s a good time for us to freshen some of the guys up who played hurt recently,” he said.
“It’s always a concern when you’re not winning games but we’ll hopefully get back into it during the second phase of the season and pick points up.
“We got beat by two at Batley recently and then lost by one point against Swinton, so that’s frustrating, especially when you don’t often get eight point tries.
“Against Swinton we didn’t put the kicks through and we should have saw the game out too, so that hurts when they get a drop goal to win it.
“I’m not going to blame that though as even though sometimes they’re a factor, we should be putting ourselves in better positions to see out games.
“We can’t be giving penalties away and forcing passes. We had a man sent off against Swinton and had a sin bin too, so our discipline needs to improve if we’re to do anything in the second phase of the season.”
Hornets had to play two games in three day over Easter, but Kilshaw isn’t using that as a factor as to why his team failed to earn any wins.
“It was the same for both sides but it’s tough on part time players, and we had a few injuries that didn’t help,” he said.
“It’s been three tough games recently with Batley and Swinton away and Sheffield Eagles at home so it’s disappointing to take no points from that, but everybody has to do it.
“We’re not that far away from winning and we did some good stuff in our games over Easter, but ultimately it’s not good enough at the moment so we all need to improve.”
The tough run of fixtures don’t get any easier for Hornets, as up next for them is a trip to Hull Kingston Rovers who currently sit top of the Championship table.
The league leaders are in extremely impressive form, having won 10 and lost just one of their 11 games so far this season.
That sole defeat did come in Hull’s last match though, as they were beaten 14-6 by Toulouse Olympique on Easter Monday.
Kilshaw knows it will be a difficult period coming up for the team, and believes the players need to take advantage of not having a game to play this week.
“We have this weekend off so we will freshen up and fix stuff up, as it’s Hull KR away next and that will be really tough,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of honest questions to answer so the players can go away and have a look at themselves this week and try to eradicate the errors from the last game.”