Sheffield Eagles: Lingard turns focus to 1895 cup clash after back-to-back defeats
Sheffield Eagles head coach Craig Lingard spoke earlier this week about his side’s unfortunate current losing streak and the lessons they need to learn to turn their luck around in time for this Sunday’s 1895 Cup fixture against Rochdale Hornets (3pm KO).
With the Eagles winning their previous preliminary round tie against Swinton Lions, they have progressed into the 1st round of the 1895 Cup, and will be facing Rochdale Hornets for a chance for further progression towards silverware.
With this cup fixture comes a break from the Betfred Championship season, and with two losses in a row for the Eagles, this could bring an opportunity to rethink their game plan and bounce back into their previously strong form.
Speaking on how his side plans to utilise this week of cup fixtures, Craig said: “I'm not taking my eye off the ball in terms of whether it's a week in the cup next week, which makes it a week off because it's not. It's a week of development.
“We've had two weeks now where we've played the top two teams in the division, and we've come up with two really bad defeats. And as I said last week, what we don't want to do is have one or two performances define our season.
“What we need to do is make sure that these two games that we've had, which we knew were going to be tough. Especially losing a few bodies as well. We're gonna see what some of our mindsets are like and see what character we have in the squad. Some good, some not so good, and that's something that we'll have to deal with.
“But what we need to do now is we need to make sure that across the next four or five weeks, we start building again. We need to keep these building blocks going to make sure that we're strengthening between now and the end of the season and making sure we are where we want to be at the business end of the season.
“But there are some real tough lessons that we've had to learn over the last couple of weeks, and we need to make sure that we have learned them and they don't keep repeating.”
Last weekend’s fixture against the London Broncos ended badly for the Eagles, with them succumbing to a 48-4 loss and also losing more crucial players to injury.
Stating what went wrong for his side and what they need to change to bounce back, Craig said: “I was disappointed with the first half, to be honest. We started the game with 12 points down after two sets. You know, we need to start the game a lot better than that.
“We talked about trying to come out with some intent and some aggression, and we got rolled the first two sets and ended up stuck behind the sticks, and you can't really build into a game when you're 12 points down after two sets.
“So, we need to be much better. We only touched the ball 11 times in that first half and made three errors on the back of that as well. And I think we only had one good set with the ball, where Alex Foster had that try disallowed early on, and we just had to be constantly defending.
“And against a team as fast and as physical and skilful as London, then you're going to be struggling. And some really simple errors frustrated me, and it compounds some of the stuff that we’ve done defensively. Coming out of systems and coming out of structures, trying to solve things individually, which we’ve talked about.
“It's basic stuff that's impacting us at times, but that's where it comes when you start fatiguing, when you're defending back-to-back sets, and we can help ourselves with that by just managing the game better and dealing with some of the contact side of it as well.
“But I guess part of the positives is that in the second half, we dealt with a lot of adversity again. We lost three players to HIAs, and Lewis Peachey came off with a hamstring injury as well. As our rotations were down, we had to activate the 18th man, so we dealt with a lot of people again playing out of position.
“They had a really good dig in that second half, and London showed their class, again, a little bit similar to last week. It's that difference between where we are at this moment in time and where the top two teams are.”
On the topic of how falling behind that early in the fixture can prove difficult for your side to overcome, he added: “You can't really do it against anybody, regardless of where they are in the table. But at least if you do that against some teams, you've got the potential of clawing the game back.
“But against a team like London, a full-time team with the players that they've got, it's nearly impossible to do that. And you know to beat anybody or have a chance of beating a team like London, you've got to be on your game 100 per cent. And it means that you've got to be completing 90+%, you've got to be defending, you've got to be kicking good. Your kick chase has got to be great. And every other little bit of the game, it's got to be absolutely bang on for you to have a chance to win those games.
“And for us to be 12 points down after less than five minutes on the clock, that's not us giving ourselves a chance to win the game. And that's what's disappointing. Statistically at this moment in time the start of the game and the start of the second half is our worst periods of the game defensively, so we need to be ready to go and we've asked the players if they are ready to go or is there anything else we can do in the warm up or at half time to make sure that they are good to go.
“But it's just that mindset, I think you've got to come out ready for kickoff after your break at halftime and be ready to go. We know that the opposition is, so we need to make sure that we are, and that's something we need to be getting better at pretty damn quick.”
Injuries have been a recurring problem for the Eagles in their recent fixtures, with important starting players like Jordan Lilley and Matty Marsh being ruled out for the season.
Commenting on how these current injuries are perhaps impacting the squad and the rotation of the players within it, Craig said: “I won't use losing players as an excuse for losing the game. The players that we lost all happened in the second half. So the game was 26 nil at halftime, maybe 28, so that had no impact on the game whatsoever.
“I guess what it did have an impact on, potentially, is what the score line finished at, again with people playing out of positions and the lack of rotations that we had, it could have had an impact on the final score line.
“But full credit to the players for rolling their sleeves up and digging deep and showing that desperation, but we need to show that desperation before it gets to that point where we're losing those players.
“We're working hard behind the scenes to try to get bodies in, particularly at fullback and halfback. Matty Marsh is done for the season, and Jordan Lilley’s done for the season as well. So to lose two of your starting three spine players is difficult for anybody. So we're hoping that we've got one sorted, but until that's 100% confirmed, we're not going to count on that one because the world of rugby league has got a habit of kicking you in the backside when you think you're going all right.
“So rest assured, we are working hard behind the scenes. We’ve got Jimmy Beckett in this week. Corey Johnson has been struggling with his shoulder for several weeks now, so we felt like we needed to give him a bit of a rest, which allowed us to move Harry Bowes back to 9 and bring Jimmy in to strengthen that middle unit, but obviously, we've lost three middles this week as well. So we might need to strengthen that middle unit next week as well.”
Jimmy Beckett will be a crucial addition to the Eagles squad, with him already impressing Craig in their fixture in London.
“He's an experienced Championship performer, with him now in Super League, so he's in that full-time environment. He knows what it takes to perform in the Championship; he's done it for several years," Craig added.
“He's a big physical body, he does long minutes, which he needed to do today, and I thought he handled himself really well out there against a really tough, aggressive, physical London pack, and he certainly strengthened us when he came on.
“So I know we've got his loan for the month, but Castleford can recall him after seven days now, as the loan market is. So hopefully we can keep him next week because, as I said, losing three middles this week, it's weakened us a little bit in that department.”