Hornets looking to bounce back

ROCHDALE Hornets travel to Featherstone Rovers on Sunday afternoon in only their second away outing of the 2017 season, looking to bounce back from a second successive defeat last week.

They went down 20-6 at home to Halifax in a disappointing afternoon for Alan Kilshaw’s men, making it back-to-back losses at the Crown Oil Arena.

Their season go off to a brilliant start with a convincing victory over Dewsbury Rams and a famous win at Odsal over Bradford Bulls, but after setting the pace early on they have slipped down to fifth in the table.

Last week Kilshaw asked for a response from his men, but felt they didn’t step up to the challenge as they slumped to a loss.

“From an effort point of view we got a response, but I didn’t question their effort last week I questioned how smart they were with the ball and without it as well,” he commented.

“We weren’t smart and our decision making was very poor.

“We started really well, at 6-0 up we should have made it 12-0 but we bombed a try, and ultimately we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win the game.

“We’re very disappointed and we have a very flat group because we didn’t play anywhere near how we can play.”

Kilshaw was particularly disappointed with the performance of Danny Yates and Lewis Palfrey in the halves, but insisted the blame didn’t lie solely on his six and seven.

“It’s not just on their shoulders it’s also other players in the team, I just think sometimes we overplayed and sometimes we made the wrong decisions.

“We’re only week four in a 30 game season and we will improve, I’m just disappointed we didn’t improve some of the things we focused on from last week, we can accept getting beat sometimes but not how we played today.

“Our goal-line defence and our defence in general was very good and one of their three tries was scored when we only had 11 men, so there are positives in there.

“The effort and desire was in there, but we need to be smarter with the ball and show better composure.”

Rovers will be one of their toughest opponents this year, especially away from home, as they have won all four of their fixtures so far this season and are behind Hull KR on points difference only.

After two defeats the Hornets could make changes to their side which will face Featherstone, while Miles Greenwood remains out with an abdominal injury.

“We were planning on rotating the side anyway for the trip to Featherstone because there are a couple of players on the fringes who deserve a run out,” continued Kilshaw.

“It’s a tough place to go, especially off the back of two defeats so we might freshen the group up but we will have to check up on injuries first.”