It’s becoming a template for Workington Town’s Championship season.
A poor first half performance, leaving them too much to do in an improved second half display, is proving very frustrating for coach Jonty Gorley.
After a heavy defeat at Oldham, Gorley got the response he was looking for with an excellent win at Hunslet last week.
So it was so disappointing to see another poor first half effort against Sheffield at the Fibrus Community Stadium end in Town trailing 24-0 at the break.
That interval deficit was soon increased to 28-0 before Town finally found their mojo and they scored the rest of the game’s points – 16 to fall to their eighth defeat in 12 league matches.
Town were unable to complete enough sets in the first half to build any sort of pressure on the Eagles who thrived on the possession tat they had.
The home defence also fell short as Sheffield dominated the opening 40 minutes, scoring five tries – two converted – to sit on a comfortable 24-0 lead at half-time.
When Billy Walkley completed his hat-trick four minutes into the second half it looked as if Town were in for a long afternoon – but that was the turning point as they fought back.
At last they started completing enough sets to build good pressure and a hat-trick of tries from Rio Corkill between the 53rd and 69th minutes, two converted by Jake Carter suggested that they could have posed real problems if they had started the game in similar fashion.
Sheffield had also scored first half tries through Blake Broadbent, Ryan Millar and Lennie Ellis with two of them converted by recent acquisition Jordan Abdull.
Town will welcome the championship break next weekend when the only games affecting those clubs are in the 1895 Cup.
Hear Jonty Gorley’s verdict below:
