Roden left with mixed emotions

Roughyeds assistant coach Martin Roden lauded his team's skill and attacking enterprise — as demonstrated by their eight-try haul in a 48-34 win over South Wales Scorpions at Whitebank.

He wasn't as happy about a defence which leaked four unanswered tries in the last 20 minutes, allowing the Welshmen to hit back from 42-12 down to 42-34 before Danny Whitmore ended their momentum with a solo try under the posts on the last play of the game.

"The game I saw," said Roden, "was one which we dominated for 90-per-cent of the time. We scored some great tries, but I'm baffled as to how we came to concede all those second-half points in the short time we weren't on top. It was surreal.

"Nearly all the Scorpions tries were soft ones or the direct result of long-range breaks.

“From our point of view, individual lapses in defence caused the problems rather than poor team defending, so we'll look at it again on the match DVD to see what was happening, and then fix it.

"I couldn't understand how Steve Parry was allowed to score his second try for Scorpions at a scrum which wheeled on our head and feed.

“In all my years in the game I've never seen a try awarded like that, but it happened so we had to deal with it.

"It was one of two tries against us while Junior (Marcus St Hilaire) was in the sin-bin. There are bound to be games when we go down to 12 men again and if we want to go far in the forthcoming play-offs we have to learn how to deal with it."