Enthusiasm and intensity impress at Workington

Benson’s Beat

THE WORKINGTON game was one of those that was even more impressive viewed on DVD afterwards.

There were so many things that we improved on in the game. Our movement off the ball, support and push up were better and we were much quicker around the ruck.

We can't get away from the fact that Workington aren't the strongest team we will ever play against, but we still had to do plenty to win with 12 men once Danny Halliwell had been sent off.

There is no danger of going overboard on it, but the improvement was good to see.

Our intensity and enthusiasm lasted for the full 80 minutes and we controlled the game from start to finish, ending as strongly as we had started. You could see that from the scoreboard, as we racked up more points after the break (32) than before it (28).

We were difficult to defend against and kept the ball moving well. The pick of the tries for me was the one for Marcus St Hilaire, which went through a number of players' hands at pace, as well as Paul O'Connor's down the left side which also featured some good support play and ball movement.

We have got seven important games left in the league now — but we are just focusing on one at a time, week-on-week.

There is no game this weekend and instead we will be taking part in the Northern Rail Nines tournament.

We need game time to keep sharp and that is how we will be using the competition, while also going all-out to win it.

You can pick a team for these shorter games a number of ways, but you still need the momentum to go forward and it will help us that we have got some quick back rowers.

It is difficult to tell how other sides will perform at this stage, but I would say we can put up a pretty strong side provided we don't get too many injuries.

I had 18 players available for Workington at the weekend, or 19 if you count Richard Mervill who wasn't able to take part in the opposed training session on Thursday night due to work commitments.

It was also good to have Chris Clarke in the squad up there and he could easily have played.

I would have been really happy if he had played and it has happened on plenty of occasions this year that the 18th man has done exactly that.

tonybenson@oldham-chronicle.co.uk