SHEFFIELD EAGLES team chief Craig Lingard says he’s starting to see some green shoots on the red, gold and white landscape as he continues to settle into the job in South Yorkshire.
The Steel City Stadium side snapped a four-match losing streak by beating Batley, where Lingard put in long service as a player, then coached the club before moving up to Super League level with Castleford.
A second league victory, after that at Featherstone, was achieved at the seventh attempt.
And while Sheffield ran in nine tries, and had seven different scorers, in the 50-18 home triumph, Lingard was just as pleased with the defensive effort.
“The win was built on the desire to keep Batley pinned back as much as possible,” he said.
“Working set after set to slow the coming out of their 20-metre area and make them kick long as often as we could was a focus during the build-up, and we emphasised that would be the foundation of a win.
“We gave the lads a pretty simple plan and gave responsibility to the nines to engineer quick play-the-balls and keep going forward, because we’ve tended to go too wide too soon.
“It was important we did the basic stuff well from the off, because I always tell players the more often you do the right things, the luckier you get, because it forces more errors from the opposition.”
Lingard, who too the job in December, continued: “It’s still a work in progress, because we’ve changed a few things, and it takes time to establish systems and combinations.
“On top of that we’ve had a few players leaving and others coming in, and while it sometimes feels like you are going backwards, I think there are some signs of progress.
“Going forward, we have to maintain that attitude, communication and desire and make the level of performance against Batley the norm.”
Sheffield’s former Huddersfield and Batley prop Tyler Dickinson made his 200th career appearance.
