Naylor won’t hear of excuses

Scott Naylor

COACH Scott Naylor says there are lessons to be learned - and no time to spare after Oldham’s 16-8 defeat at Keighley in the first of their three pre-Championship warm-up games.

Describing the Roughyeds’ performance at Cougar Park as excellent in the first half and shocking in the second, Naylor said he wouldn’t listen to excuses just because this was a friendly.

“Keighley’s tries were as much about our poor defence as their good offence,” said Naylor. I’m certainly disappointed that we didn’t clean up the kick that led to their try near the end.

“In the second half we gave away a lot of penalties and surrendered a lot of field position by making mistakes and when you do that you are going to lose. There were some very good individual performances, but in the second half we were very poor as a team. Big improvements will be needed if we are to hit the ground running at Rochdale next Sunday.

“Excuses won’t wash because the heavy conditions were the same for both sides; it was the first game of the year for both; and we both had several new players on debut.

“We lost because we didn’t respect the ball and we conceded penalties — lessons we need to learn quickly, given the quality of opposition we will be facing.

“I’m sure the players will have got a lot out of the game after their close-season break, but they’ve still got some learning to do — and fast.”