Batley boss Diskin praises Ward, admits work to do on defence

Batley coach Matt Diskin praised man of the match Michael Ward in only his second appearance for the club at the weekend.

Ward came off the bench and scored two tries as the Bulldogs beat Swinton 48-28.

The former Oldham forward made the switch to Mount Pleasant in the off-season and has hit the ground running.

Diskin said: “He was outstanding. He’s a real quality team player as well, and he had a chance to go over for a hat-trick but gave it to his mate on the outside.

“That shows the quality of his character, he’s a great bloke and he’s going to be a real asset to the club.”

In only their second outing of the season following the postponement of their opener against Rochdale, Batley ran in nine tries to defeat the Lions, though perhaps have some work to do on their defence which enabled Swinton to hang on to their coat tails.

Diskin added: “The referee got a bit whistle happy at times and there were some interesting penalties for both sides, but we didn’t handle them very well.

“We reacted quite poorly, and every time we conceded a penalty or made an error, we seemed to concede a try off it.

“Mentally, we’ve got to a bit tougher there and we’re conscious of it.

“It’s only round two for us, so we’ll keep improving week to week.

“There’s a lot of competition for places which is good, and we’ll take the positives offensively but we can’t overlook that we let in too many points.

“We’re not going to beat the top teams with that many points so we look at the issues, work on them this week and have a solution come Barrow at the weekend.”