Clark wants improvement, but praises Rooney

South Wales Scorpions coach Dave Clark believes that there is a lot to put right before their next big game, a home Championship 1 tie against Workington Town next Sunday at The Gnoll in Neath (kick-off 1pm).

The Scorpions edged a 32-30 win at Gateshead Thunder last Sunday in their first league match of the season thanks to an Ashley Bateman try with 90 seconds remaining and Clark knows that his team used their got out of jail card.

“I think the coaching staff on the sidelines were getting a bit nervous there at the end,” he said. “The game could have easily been over when Gateshead scored their last try near to the end, but credit to our boys.

“We have to take a look at ourselves. We’re conceding too many points, we’re scoring enough but defensively we’re not working as well as a team. Coming here today, we wanted the points. Did we get them? Yes we did. Was it the result we wanted? Yes, but there’s work to be done.

“We have responsibilities as a team to correct those things, but individually and in players performances reviews we have to see where we’re going wrong and correct that very quickly. We need to put some ownership on the players now.

“We’ve a big game next Sunday against Workington Town, it’s our first home league match and we want to do well in that for the fans. We’ve a lot to do this week before then.”

Clark gave credit to former Super League star Jamie Rooney whose in-game kicking was instrumental to the Scorpions’ win.

“His first half kicking was superb,” Clark adds. “His 40-20s were great, his kicking from a scrum led to a try and he had a really good first half especially.

“We had good completion rate in the first half, 17 out of 22 so it was quite high. Second half it wasn’t so high. It showed that with Gateshead’s ability, that if they get field position and ball, they’ll score tries and we let them in. That’s something we have to look at now and get corrected really quickly.”