Hornets learn tough lessons
ROCHDALE Hornets head coach Alan Kilshaw felt it was men against boys during his side’s 38-8 defeat to Featherstone Rovers on Sunday.
Hornets struggled to compete with their Yorkshire opponents, with Featherstone picking up a dominant win at the Crown Oil Arena.
It means Kilshaw’s side are now eight league games without a win, and he thought his team made too many mistakes in the match.
“Featherstone are a very good side and they’re riding the wave of some good form, but it looked like it was men against boys,” he said.
“They were powerful and after their first set on the field we were ominous. When you’re playing a team of their quality we can’t turn over the ball like we did.
“In the second set we made an error and by the team we got to the ball it was already 10-0. We managed to score but then they got a couple more of the back of that, so we’ve got to be better.
“If you’re making errors against a quality team then they’ll punish you. We fixed us in the second half a bit but I’m not sure if that was us improving or Featherstone dropping off.
“They made some errors and we managed to keep them scoreless for 25 minutes so there’s a small positive but the match was already won by then so they would have had an eye on their next game.”
While Kilshaw accepted that his side were beaten by the better team in the match, he felt there were some factors that contributed to it.
“Injuries had a huge influence. The game was poised at 16-4 and then a few things happened,” he said.
“We thought Chris Riley was kicked in the face and then Featherstone scored off the back of that while we lost our full back, so he had to go off and have the head test.
“We lost Jordan Case early as well, so our right side was a bit disruptive and Featherstone scored a couple of tries when those guys were injured.
“Consistency is what we need out there and we lost that a bit as we had to
‘They’re riding the wave of some great form, but it was men against boys’
switch things around.
“In the second half we got bodies back there who are comfortable in those positions and it told the tale in the second half.”
The defeat for Hornets leaves them ninth in the Kingstone Press Championship table on seven points, having won three, lost nine and drawn one of their 13 games so far this season.
Hornets now have a week off before their next match, with the team set to return to action with a trip to The Shay to take on Halifax on Sunday 21 May.