Kingstone Press League 1 preview: South Wales Scorpions v Rochdale Hornets

South Wales Scorpions coach Mike Grady is looking for a reaction from his team this week following their 70-0 defeat to York City Knights.

“It was a tough one but believe it or not we started off very well,” he said.

“We do compete. Against Crusaders we competed for 35 minutes and were 14-12 up but as soon as we have a couple of tries put past us the floodgates open.

“My job at the moment is trying to work out why it happens. I’ll get to the bottom of it this week.

“It’s going to be tough to get a win this week. Rochdale are up there but we’ve just got to make it tough for teams who come down to South Wales. We need a competitive performance.”

Rochdale Hornets coach Ian Talbot says there are positives and negatives to his squad having had a week off.

“We were hitting a little bit of form and getting a little bit of continuity in our performances so to have that broken didn’t quite come at the right time but these lads deserve a rest every now and then,” he said.

“The commitment they put into play rugby at this level is fantastic.

“Don’t get me wrong, we would have loved to have been at Blackpool in the cup final and enjoyed a day in the sun at the Summer Bash but we made the most of the rest while we had the opportunity. Let’s hope it hasn’t broken our momentum.

And talking of commitment, Talbot is full of praise for the journey South Wales made up to Yorkshire to take on York City Knights last week.

“You’ve got to credit them for going all the way up to Featherstone on a Friday night,” he said.

“I don’t know how they managed it.

“I’m sure if we had to go that far it would be a scratch team. You’ve got to commend their effort.”