Dewsbury Rams were defeated 30-14 by close rivals Batley Bulldogs on Sunday afternoon in Blackpool at the Summer Bash. Head coach Lee Greenwood was disappointed by the loss despite the hard effort he believes the players put in to the fixture.
On the loss he said: “We have been disappointing in the last few performances and especially against Batley at home, so we asked not get bullied and to have a proper go at them. I thought we did have a go, at times a bit of quality and a bit of composure happened, and there was sometimes a bounce of the ball or decision that didn’t go our way.
“There was a patch where they scored a couple of tries and it was a different game to what I thought it was right the way through. I don’t want to be too hard on them, there are a lot of lads learning the ropes on the run really, and unfortunately whilst you have lads learning the ropes you are going to lose some games. I do think they learnt from their last performance against Batley in a way and I do think they got stuck in, we can be better but we certainly didn’t get bullied. Maybe at crucial times there was that bit of quality that was missing.
“Right at the start it was always going to be who could get the most attacking sets towards the opponents try line and I think we made the first few mistakes. That gave Batley the field position, and I think the stats from the game show that Batley made one mistake and gave one penalty away in the full first half. I think we scored after our first full attacking set deep into the first half. They came with a game plan of where and when to kick and chase really well, and then they worked off of our mistakes and we gave them a couple of them.
“I didn’t think we were out of the game, at 12-4 we had a few chances to get over and probably the key one was when Adam Ryder looked like for all the world he was going to score, but fair play it was a great tackle. Ryder is a big lad so to knock him on his backside like that and save the try is some going, then it was a turn over and in their next set they go and score and it just popped our balloon a little bit. It was an energy sapping game for both sides anyway so when they scored a couple it made the game look a little bit different. Fair play to our lads they cracked on and scored a few nice tries at the end, but it is what it is, I am sick of saying the word transition, but that is what it is.
“That is a Batley team three years in the making and at the moment they are better than us now, but I would like to think in time we are going to get closer to that. It takes time at clubs like Dewsbury, you have to build properly, your retainment and recruitment is massive and that is where we are at and that is the process we have to go through.
“It would have been harsh on our lads if the score line would have been larger for the amount of effort they put in. I think the overall score line although disappointing for me whilst hurting inside is a fair reflection. Batley are three years into doing what they are doing their, I am half a season into what I want to do here.
“We have three lads on loan from Wigan learning the ropes at this level, Liam Mackay has come from League 1, Sam Day is playing his first proper season of Championship rugby, Tom Garrat has come out of an amateur set up, so it is a miss match of players that are finding their feet and learning the ropes on the run. It isn’t easy but we will keep working hard behind the scenes and keep working on what improvements we have to make and hopefully that will get us some good results.”
The Rams sustained a bad injury to on loan player Callum Field, Greenwood gave the press his initial reaction to the injury concern.
He said: “It doesn’t look good, I would be surprised if it wasn’t a break or serious damage done to it, so it doesn’t look good. So that might mean we will be without Callum, and they need the game time to get better and to be fair to Fieldy he has been doing that, this will now set him back. We will obviously assess things and then see how it goes but initially it doesn’t look good.
“Kyle Trout was out today and Paul Sykes is getting closer back to full fitness, all teams have their injuries so you just have to put up with it.”
The Rams next few Championship games are against the Swinton Lions and Rochdale Hornets, Greenwood gave the media his thoughts ahead of those.
“Even before this game, they were cup final games against Swinton and Rochdale and that is what it is looking like, and Barrow thrown in there too. So it is looking like it will be us, Rochdale, Swinton and Barrow and it will be two from those four, and I am pretty sure I said that earlier on in the season too, so for me nothing has changed as disappointing as it is with some of these results. Now with these fixtures it is a big two points to get as you saw with Swinton against Rochdale.”
When asked what the aim is for the rest of the season Greenwood said: “I want to be in the Championship for a start, and to do that we will have to pick up some points with a few more wins. We need to improve in certain areas to do that, but like I say these games against Swinton, Rochdale and Barrow we need to pick up enough points in them. We can go and pick up points else where we have proved that this season away at Featherstone and Widnes. It is in there but we need to make the improvements to get there, I am confident we can do it but that is our battle.”
