Sandercock blasts first half effort

Hull KR coach Craig Sandercock has blasted his side’s first half performance against Wigan.

Sandercock saw his side fall behind to 26-0 after only 25 minutes, in a game which saw referee Phil Bentham stretchered off the field with a fractured tibia.

And Sandercock was furious with his side’s performance.

He said: “They blew us off the park in that first 20 minutes and if you’re going to compete with the top teams you can’t afford to give five penalties away in the opening quarter. That killed us and it’s something we need to work on.

“In that opening period we didn’t do the things that we’d talked about all week. We’d spoken about not giving penalties away and getting through our sets, but we came up with too many errors. Wigan are a class side who punish you if given the chance.”

Despite being 30-6 behind just after half time, Rovers fought back to bring the score line to a respectable 36-22, with tries from Shannon McDonnell, Josh Hodgson, Kris Welham and a first half touch down from Ben Galea.

And Sandercock was relatively happy despite the consolation second half performance.

He said: “The one positive was the second half display but not being able to put two consistent halves together has unfortunately been the story of our season. There is some character there, we didn’t give in and scored some decent tries but that opening 20 minutes told the story.

“We want to be in the play-offs come the end of the year and there’s still a long way to go. For us to get there we’re going to have to play some good footy between now and the end of the season. If we are good enough to get into the eight I’d back our chances of doing well.”