Debutants fitted in well, says satisfied Benson

A SMILING Tony Benson celebrated a first away victory of the season at Gateshead by praising the opposition.

Thunder have not won a game against professional opposition for 15 months, but were holding Doncaster at half-time a week ago and also gave Oldham plenty to think about in the opening stages.

Before the introduction from the bench of powerful impact duo Dave Ellison and Luke Sutton, the home side were giving as good as they got and were level at 6-6 shortly after the first quarter of the game.

Benson was delighted with the way his men dealt with the challenge, picking up a much-needed back-to-back win that maintains their Co-operative Championship One play-off challenge.

“Gateshead gave us such a game at the start,” said Benson, who came away with no fresh injury concerns.

“To be honest, games like that can go either way. It was past 20 minutes when we got two tries to take us ahead.

“Gateshead took it to us and we handled it well. That is what I am really happy about.

“We hung in there in the arm wrestle, which we have failed to do a bit in the past, before we started to dominate.

“And slowly, without panicking, we built pressure and took the game away from them. It was a good effort by a number of players.

“Defensively, we were pretty sound. We were a little spread on the field which gave them a few opportunities in the second half.

“Once we tightened that up and pushed in a bit things changed and we got more control around the ruck.

“On the negative side, some of our marking was light at times but better at others.”

Benson was pleased with the debuts of Leeds Rhinos loan duo Callum Casey and Danny Bravo, as well as Ellison and Sutton, and is increasingly happy with the options open to him within the Roughyeds squad.

“Elly had a stormer and Luke was right up there, too. You have to give everyone a run and look at others with the next game in mind.

“Some of the changes I made probably affected things a little bit. I thought Callum Casey did a good job and Danny as well. They have fitted in well.”