Workington Town have a week’s break now to lick their wounds after a desperately close defeat at Hunslet.
Following the 22-18 defeat at the South Leeds Stadium, Anthony Murray’s men have a week off before hosting – for the first time – Cornwall on Sunday June 4.
After a season of stop-start rugby that’s the first fixture in a two-month series of games when they only miss one week – July 16.
Cornwall have only won one game and should provide Town with an opportunity to return to winning ways after successive defeats against Doncaster, Oldham and Hunslet.
Their last win was at Rochdale on April 16 when they edged a cliff-hanger 29-28 – and will have noted that Cornwall crashed to a 62-6 defeat there on Sunday.
The Cornish try was scored by recent signing Dave Weetman, who spent time at Workington under coach Chris Thorman and did well to resume playing after a serious injury.
After Sunday’s defeat at Hunslet, coach Murray said: “It wasn’t a game for coaches. We made too many unfortunate errors, including the late one that cost us a try.
“Overall though I can’t fault the effort and we will learn from this.”
In a dramatic finale, Workington freed Sean Sabutey, only for their top scorer to squander what would have been the levelling try – with the kick to come – by spilling the ball in diving over with just four minutes left.
Hunslet coach Alan Kilshaw said: “Even if Sabutey had scored that try, and even if the subsequent conversion had been successful, I still feel we would have found a way to win.
“We have experienced players in our side with immense resolve, and I’m sure they would have come up with something in the closing stages.
“We were the better side, and deserved to win, but going 12-0 up in the early stages through a couple of tries that we hadn’t perhaps quite earned maybe got us into the wrong mind-set.
“We were wasteful with the ball, and didn’t complete twelve sets, which tells its own story. For all that, though, we should have had two or three more tries.
“Josh Jordan-Roberts would have scored in what was his 100th professional appearance but had the ball kicked out of his hands – which I thought meant a penalty try in Rugby League – while Adam Ryder, who might also have been given a penalty try at one stage, would have scored a hat-trick on another day.
“I didn’t think Sabutey grounded the ball for their second touchdown either. It was one of those afternoons, but ultimately it was good to get the win, which was our first in the league against another `heartland’ club for over a year, since we won at Workington in September 2021 in fact.”
