Whitehaven crashed 76-4 at Featherstone Rovers in their third Championship defeat of the season.
But Haven’s season won’t be defined by games against the likes of Featherstone or Toulouse, and next week’s home clash with Swinton is likely to be more revealing.
Featherstone, who are expected to battle it out with Toulouse for the title, had far too much power and class for the Cumbrians.
They scored 14 tries, ten of which were converted and Whitehaven could only record one score – an unconverted try from Josh Rourke.
The scoring was pretty symmetrical with Featherstone scoring 36 points in the first half and 40 in the second, dominating possession throughout.
Whitehaven wouldn’t have been expected to win this one, but perhaps some of the defending wasn’t as good as it should have been, even allowing for the quality of the opposition.
It looked ominous for Haven when their hosts scored after only four minutes when Leilua burst powerfully through the line to score and Craig Hall landed the first of his ten conversions.
On nine minutes Rovers doubled their lead when Thomas Lacans marked his debut with a try.
After 11 minutes it was 18-0 and this time it was Kopczak who made the touchdown for Hall to add the extras.
Then came Whitehaven’s best moment. A really good set opened up the home defence and Rourke went over but couldn’t add the extras.
But it was business as usual for Featherstone as they doubled their tally of points before half-time.
Substitute Davies crossed within seconds of coming on; McKenzie Yei went over on 35 minutes and Riley Dean scored the sixth try two minutes later.
Hall enjoyed his half-time break with a 100% record from his six conversion attempts.
But that record was broken four minutes into the second half when he could only hit the post after Gareth Gale swept over from a Dean off-load.
Jack Bussey was the next one to cross on 50 minutes and this time Hall made no mistake.
The half century was reached on 56 minutes when Connor Jones raced clear for an unconverted try.
One of the best Featherstone moves of the game produced a try for Aekins on 59 minutes and then on last tackle Rovers spread it through five pairs of hands for Briscoe to score.
Gale notched his second try on 67 minutes and seven minutes from time Leilua scored his second. Three minutes from the end Gale completed his hat-trick.
