Lingard hopes for Eagles response against London

Reflecting on last weekend’s defeat to Bradford Bulls, Lingard was honest in his assessment of the performance, pointing to a crucial spell in the second half where the game slipped out of the Eagles’ control.

“I was very disappointed with the second half performance on Sunday, and I thought we accepted Bradford instead of imposing ourselves on the game,” he said.

“I thought we were sloppy within that eight-to-nine-minute period where we allowed Bradford to score three tries. We allowed them to dictate the tempo of the game instead of doing that ourselves, so we have got to try and make sure we recognise when that tempo in a game has changed or if it’s getting away from us.

“We’ve got to learn how to do that, whether that’s get the ball and try and slow the game down a little bit. We need to recognise when we need to do that more.”

Looking ahead to Sunday’s test in the capital, Lingard is expecting a typically physical challenge from the London Broncos and knows his side will need to be sharp across the full eighty minutes.

“I’m expecting a tough and physical London side this weekend,” he added.

“They’re always an athletic and fit side who try and play for the full eighty minutes.

“It looks like they’ve got a slightly less experienced squad this year to what they’ve had over previous years. I know Mike (Eccles) has said a lot of their players are learning as they go, they’ve put together parts in games where they’ve challenged sides so far this season.”

“They gave it a good go against York in that first half last weekend, but then the game ran away from them as York kicked on, so we certainly won’t be taking London lightly this weekend.

“Both sides have similar records, it’s a good opportunity for us to get that win, but we know that London will be thinking the same. It’s a home game for them that they’ll be targeting to win, so we need to make sure that we’re as prepared for them as they are for us.

“We need to ensure that we execute the game plan set, both offensively and defensively, and get both parts of the game right for more than the forty minutes than we did against Bradford.”

In terms of squad availability, Lingard confirmed that several players remain sidelined, although there is some positive news with potential returns on the horizon.

“Thankfully for us, there doesn’t seem to be any long-term damage for Masi, but we’ll be without him for this weekend,” he said.

“We’ll potentially have James Glover back for Sunday, Connor Bower trained the other night so we’ll see how he is for the weekend, and we may potentially have Titus (Gwaze) back for the weekend.

“We think that the London game this weekend will be a bit too soon for Jack Walker, we’re hoping we can get this game out the way, have a week off next weekend, and there’s a chance that he might be back for the Hunslet game.

“That’s the same with Joel (Farrell), if everything goes to plan, we’re hoping we may have him back for that game too in a fortnight.

“We’re not too sure on Matty (Marsh) at the minute, we’re still waiting to find out how things are with him since he came off in the Batley game.”

While much of the external focus may be on picking up momentum ahead of a busy period of fixtures, Lingard was keen to stress that all attention remains firmly on this weekend’s task.

“The immediate focus is on this weekend, we can’t be focusing too far ahead,” he added. “We need to make sure our full focus is on getting the win this weekend, and then hopefully kicking on from there ahead of the game at home against Hunslet in two weeks.”