Kingstone Press Championship Preview: Whitehaven v Workington Town

Following Whitehaven’s defeat at London Broncos last week, coach James Coyle felt that there was room for improvement.

“We went quite well and matched them for long periods but overall I don’t think our transition was good enough.

“Our kicking game wasn’t very good and our chase was pretty poor in parts that gave them the emphasis to get good starts in their sets. Inevitably, if you get a good start to your sets you can usually get more out of it. They did well on their transition and we weren’t good enough, that was the difference between the two teams in the end.

“This week will be the biggest game of the year for us so far. Workington are on nine points and we’re on 12. It’s a four-pointer and in the context of what we’ve done this year and what they’ve done, if they win the game they’ll have picked up six out of 11 points against us and put us under pressure chasing our tail, so we need to make sure that doesn’t happen and we get a good win at the weekend.”

Workington Town coach Phil Veivers said: “There were a lot of positives in last week’s game but individual errors cost us points. We created a lot of opportunities that we didn’t take and had three tries disallowed.

“Whitehaven are a much-improved side, I’ve watched their last three games and they have competed very strongly and scored some points. Last week against London was no different.

“To score 24 points and come away with a loss must be disappointing for the coach and I’m pretty sure they’ll come out in a positive frame of mind, especially on their own ground, and try and roll us. They’re not been able to do it so far this year.”