Defensively better after hard week for players

I THOUGHT we were better defensively against Keighley and made a huge improvement in that area.

Considering the disrupted week we had, our defence was really good and put a lot of pressure on them as well.

There were a number of standouts, including Phil Joseph, Tommy Goulden and Jamie I'Anson and Neil Roden was superb defensively too.

One of the things I am really pleased about over the past three games is that we have kept going for the full 80 minutes, rather than playing in patches. We have been more consistent.

We could have won the Keighley game at the end.

It is difficult out there — the emotions are high and we chose the wrong play. I believe there were 15 seconds left on the clock which could have provided two plays for us.

I reckon that would have been enough to score again and claim the victory, as we really had them on the ropes.

But all credit to the players. We did what we did with 12 men and that is against a Keighley side who are not up in second place in the table by accident.

There were good things in the game for us, coming after a difficult week behind the scenes. Chris Hamilton had tried to keep everything positive and prevent the issues from affecting the team, but unfortunately circumstances meant that was impossible.

We now look ahead to Dewsbury and I am confident we can do well over there.

Hopefully we will have a few more players back on board with cleared-up injuries and the areas we have been working on — in which we were exposed against Dewsbury last time — were ones that we were very strong in this week.

We made good yards coming out of our own half and they didn't get over from close to our line, which let us down last time.

One of the other aspects that has been really good this year is that the reserve grade professionals Scott Mansfield, Chris Clarke, Mark Smith and Ben Heaton have all now been involved with the first team, either as 18th man or through playing in the Nines tournament.

Ben was 18th man for the Keighley game and it is good to see that pathway being followed. All the boys are serious contenders, too.

tonybenson@oldham-chronicle.co.uk