Whitehaven’s Challenge Cup run ended in the capital as they went down 32-10 to hosts London Broncos.
That represented a much better second-half by the Cumbrians as they had trailed 22-0 at half-time – 40 minutes which coach Jonty Gorley thought was abysmal from his side.
“That’s possibly the worst half of rugby I’ve been involved in during my five years at Whitehaven.
“I thought it was a dreadful performance. I don’t coach a team to play like that,” he said.
Whitehaven did not make a very good start and London were in for two early tries from Jarred Bassett and Bill Leyland, one of which was improved by Oli Leyland.
The Cumbrians suffered a blow when they lost hard-working forward Liam McAvoy to a head injury and he was unable to return but generally Haven were second best all around the pitch.
Two more tries followed from Bassett and Marcus Stock which were both converted by Leyland for a comfortable 22-0 lead at the break.
It didn’t look particularly promising when Bassett completed his hat-trick and Leyland also got over but from 32-0 Haven at last began to see more ball and made better use of it.
Curtis Teare and Chris Taylor scored tries for Gorley’s men and Sam Freeman landed a conversion but clearly a case of far too little, far too late.
It completed a second successive marathon away trip for Haven who can now look forward to a relatively sedate trip to York next Sunday.
