Craig Lingard demands greater patience after Sheffield Eagles’ late heartbreak at Barrow Raiders
Sheffield Eagles head coach Craig Lingard spoke about his side’s 18-16 loss against Barrow Raiders, and what needs to be worked on in time for facing Whitehaven this Sunday (6pm KO).
Sheffield Eagles came up short in Cumbria at the weekend, and due to a late penalty, they have lost their second fixture in a row in the Betfred Championship.
Commenting on what went wrong in his team’s game plan, coach Craig Lingard remarked, “I am really disappointed. I think we put ourselves in the position to win the game a number of times, but I don't think we were patient enough.
“I thought we started chasing things that were not there, rather than being comfortable putting a team in the corner and making them work out against the elements in the second half. We didn't use the elements at all. I thought the ends of our sets were really poor.
“I thought we tried to chase endings that were not really there. We should have put them in a corner, been patient and made them kick out of their own area, and do that again and again.
“I think if you come up to Barrow at any time of the season, getting a victory is difficult, let alone when they are playing as well as they are, but I think that is two points lost from us today.”
He added, “We knew it was going to be tough in the first 20 or 40 minutes, because you’re playing against a strong wind here, and we knew we just needed to be calm and patient.
“We needed to try and get as much territory as possible, because we knew in that first half we were going to be defending our own tryline.
“We have got to expect that at some point in that half, when you’re playing against the elements, you’re going to be put under some pressure defending your own goal line, and that’s where we were.
“We went 12 points down, but we didn’t panic. We got back up the other end of the field, and by doing the right things, we got ourselves into the right areas. Our back 5 scored some nice tries coming out of the back field, by working hard off the ball, which is what we have talked about all season.
“Just because the opposition has kicked the ball, don’t leave the back 3 to do it on their own, centres get back, back rows get back and pull the width and open the field up, and that’s what they did.
“But in the second half, we just went away from that. The try that they scored to equalise was just a kick into the corner, which came off the back of our end of the set, where we tried a reverse kick down the middle of the field.
“Which, why? Just put it in the corner and make them bring the ball out from 10 metres off their own tryline and make them kick against the wind. We didn’t do that, we tried something that wasn’t on, and we opened the field up for them to get on the front foot.”
Recognising the element of Barrow’s game which secured them the victory in the end, Craig said, “The reason why they won the game at the end was that they managed the last 10 minutes really well, by working hard and putting the ball in the right area of the field. And when they got a bit of pressure on our line, they didn’t necessarily force it; they got a repeat set, and we had to defend back-to-back sets on our own goal line.
“Then, when we had it down at the other end of the field, we conceded penalties with the ball in hand. It's about managing those key moments better, and not panicking and being patient. We have to be comfortable being in that grey area.
“You don’t need to be scoring every time you get the ball; there’s going to be a period in the game where you might go 10, 12, 14 sets where it's just in that contest. If you don't score, don't force it and try something that’s not on.
“You've got to understand that if you're the team defending your tryline, time after time, then you might get away with 3 or 4 sets, but eventually the dam is going to break. Quite often in rugby, you might go back-to-back, and then it's potentially gone from being 4 points to 16 points. But we didn't fully buy into the process of doing that.”
Despite this tough loss, there were elements of their game that can still be appreciated, such as the strong comeback in the first half, something which Craig was pleased by. He stated, “That resilience is good and pleasing, because it shows that you’re not going to wilt under the pressure.
“Which, at times, against the big teams this year, we’ve done that. It’s pleasing that when we were 12 points down, we didn’t get into that mindset of feeling sorry for ourselves, and we pulled our socks up and dug deep to get us back into the game.
“Barrow is a quality side, the league table speaks for itself, and the way that they are playing this year is first class, but I was really disappointed that we came up and lost by 2 points. It was a great effort, but that doesn’t get you league points.”
Masi Matongo came off injured during the game, leaving the squad with one less interchange to play around with, which has been a consistent problem for the Eagles this campaign.
Speaking on this recurring problem, Craig said, “He’s (Masi Matongo) struggling with a bad dead leg; he couldn’t straighten his leg, so there was no way we could get him back on.
“With only having 2 middles on the bench anyway, it meant the rotations were very minimal. We had to move people around into positions they’ve not played in or aren’t comfortable in, or we had to run people into the ground.
“We tried to run Griff (George Griffin) for 80 minutes, but we had to take him off with 10 minutes left, and then you lose a little bit of that intensity in the middle.
“The fact that people had to do longer minutes than they usually do, maybe that contributed at times to our lack of ruck speed towards the end of the 2nd half.”
With the unfortunate passing of John Kear, which happened at the end of last month, Craig shared some words about the impact John had on not just the people around him, but on Rugby League as a whole. He said, “He had a big part in the history of Sheffield Eagles, and a big part in my career as well.
“I'm indebted to John for what he has done in my career. He gave me the first opportunity to get back into the semi-pro game as an assistant coach at Batley.
“I worked under John for four years there, and learned a heck of a lot under him. He was always at the end of the phone if I needed to speak to him or needed any advice.
“The key moments during my career, John was always on the phone giving me help or guidance. He’s a great loss to his family, his friends and the game as a whole.”