Last updated at 14:28, Sunday, 19 August 2012

FRUSTRATED, disappointed or just plain brassed off – I’m sure every Raiders fan will have felt one or all of those emotions at 4.30pm last Sunday.

I can assure you the boys in the dressing room were feeling it double.

During the week leading up to the game, I thought we prepared pretty well and you could tell the players were looking forward to it.

Usually on the bus journey to games there is a bit of banter between the lads, but on Sunday it wasn’t as boisterous, even Finchy had his head on!

Unfortunately, our performance wasn’t what it needed to be and everything we talked about didn’t happen. Ultimately we made too many simple handling errors and, especially in the second half, gave too many penalties away which didn’t allow us to build up any sustained field position.

Workington haven’t got many players who will score from distance, but what they have are plenty of big guys who keep running hard at you. They played disciplined, low-risk rugby and, unfortunately for us, the better team won on the day.

To really rub salt in our wounds, it had to be big Mike Whitehead who scored the try that took the bonus point off us. If Town pick up that £50k cheque in three weeks, I bet Mike will be knocking on the boardroom door asking for a bit of a donation towards his testimonial!

Despite the result, there were a couple of highlights in the game.

Scott Kaighan proved he is the strongest stand-off for his age in Barrow by brushing off what seemed to be half of the Workington team. Scotty isn’t known for his big hits either, but I’m sure he took great pleasure in putting Jason Mossop on his backside, something I’m sure Jason will be reminded of regularly.

Ell Miller didn’t escape either, as he was on the end of a Lee Haney special. If it was me on the receiving end, I think I would be just scraping myself off the floor now.

These Millom boys don’t feel pain though. He just got up, laughed, and within five minutes he was scoring off an American Football style pass from fellow Millomite Peter Lupton.

Tomorrow we go to Spotland to play Rochdale Hornets. Hopefully the game is still going ahead, as on Thursday their goalposts were deemed unsafe. Maybe the RFL would be able to fund another set?

The Hornets will be a tough challenge on their own patch, but our boys will be keen to get back on the horse after last week. The pressure is now on Workington, so we can go there and enjoy the game.

This week we lost one of our valued medical team. Mel has started a new job on a cruise ship as a massage therapist – which is a great opportunity for her.

I’m sure everyone at the club wishes her the best in her new career.

First published at 13:06, Sunday, 19 August 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk