Whitehaven finished their 1895 Cup game with Sheffield down to only 11 fit players as more injuries sabotaged their efforts.
But head coach Jonty Gorley refused to blame the 40-6 defeat on the mounting injury list which has so depleted their squad.
“We were only down to 11 for the last five minutes, and I know we’ve had a difficult time with injuries, but we have to be smarter than we have been showing.
“It wasn’t a bad effort in the first-half, trailing 16-6 but I’m afraid in the second half we just weren’t good enough, conceding far too many poor tries and being unable to look after the ball.
“We’ve got a Cumbrian derby next against Workington and both teams are out of form at the moment. As usual, though it will be about who wants the game the most,” he said.
The play-off tie with Sheffield was played at Featherstone and Haven made a poor start going behind as early as the third minute when Anthony Thackeray hacked-on a chip over the top and won the race to the touchdown.
On nine minutes Sheffield doubled their lead when QLT scored the second and on 18th a third try, this time from Ben Jones-Bishop had Sheffield 12-0 to the good and relatively untroubled. Thankfully for Haven none of the tries were converted.
It was 16-0 on 34 minutes when QLT grabbed his second and on virtually the last play of the half Dion Aiye got a try back when he followed up a kick from Geronimo Doyle and Connor Holliday converted.
The score was a welcome boost right on half-time and although Haven made a bright start to the second-half it was Sheffield who scored first when Jason Bass collected a pass from Thackeray to go over. Izaac Farrell finally landed a conversion.
Sheffield went on to score four more tries in the second-half but this time all four were converted by Farrell. Jones-Bishop scored two more tries to complete a hat-trick and Thackeray also got over asgain.
