RUGBY LEAGUE
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ST PAT’S coach Kurt Hancock will be a man hard at work this week as he tries to sort out his team’s defensive and discipline issues on the back of an untidy 52-32 Group 10 premier league win over Panthers on Sunday.
The Saints were clearly the better side and on the back of some smart and occasionally brilliant attacking work from Garry Reilly and Benjamin John, they never went more than 10 minutes without crossing the stripe.
It was the side’s work at the other end that worried Hancock though, and he will be looking for answers before their match this Sunday against competition leaders Mudgee.
“I’ll get the tape and make sure I watch it a couple of times after that,” he said.
“We will have to see what we come up with. We can’t afford to play like that when the finals come.
“Just continuously we were making a mistake or giving them a penalty that would drag them down field. Our discipline wasn’t good.
“There were still positives though, Benji [John] early on in the game was very strong, big Coops [Paletime Ale] was dangerous whenever we got the ball to him, and Brent Dennis worked his butt off all game.”
His appraisal of Ale was on the money, with the rangy and skilful forward constantly drawing three and four Panthers defenders and still threatening to offload or drag them with him.
Meanwhile Panthers now must try and put their own ordinary performance behind them as they seek a late charge into the top five with three weeks remaining.
Going into Sunday’s game they trailed Orange CYMS – the only team they can realistically knock out of the top five – by four points.
With CYMS losing to Lithgow Workies that gap stays the same, and Mick Sullivan’s side has the toughest run home in the competition with games against Cowra, St Pat’s and Mudgee still to come.
On current form, they would be favoured to lose all three.
Panthers, on the other hand, have games with Blayney and Lithgow that they can be confident of winning – though Blayney did deliver them an upset in round seven - before taking on Orange Hawks in the final round.
That could decide their fate.
At any rate, coach John Fearnley knows his side has to improve on what they showed on Sunday.
“We missed [injured hooker] Luke Carpenter badly out there. In the wins against Mudgee and CYMS he really got us going early in the game with some good running, we just weren’t in this one for the first 15 minutes,” he said.
“I was actually happy with the fight that we showed, we lost Blake Seager and Trent Rose mid-way through the match, so we were down to one or two on the bench.
“But it wasn’t first grade football what we were doing. When you play a team as good as them it kills you if you fail to find touch with penalty kicks, keep making mistakes, keep giving away penalties.”