WHITEHAVEN coach James Newton wants to see a more confident side over the remaining eleven league matches of this season.
The Cumbrians are next in action at Midlands on Saturday, when they will aim to spoil the Hurricanes’ homecoming after nine successive games away from Birmingham.
The first of those was at Whitehaven in March in what was Newton’s first match at the Ortus REC helm after he stepped up from assistant following the departure of Anthony Murray.
It finished 20-20, since when the former player has had eight more games in all competitions.
There have been two wins, with the first on home soil coming when Keighley were defeated 16-14 by an after-the-hooter penalty-goal.
It was the fifth of the match slotted by stand-off Ciaran Walker, who also converted his own try.
And while it wasn’t a contest for the purists, with Newton accepting it was “a tough watch”, he was more than happy with the outcome.
“We were into a win’s a win scenario,” smiled the coach.
“It certainly wasn’t pretty, but I’ll take it, and hopefully it will give the boys a bit of confidence going forward.
“There were certainly a lot of errors, but we had spoken about the importance of reacting to them and worked on that too. I just didn’t want there to be so many times when we needed to do it.
“The positives, along with grinding out the win, were that we started well – and had we scored a second try in that period, I think it would have been more straightforward – and the way we defended.
“The boys were dogged, and they put pressure on (Keighley halfback) Izaac Farrell to limit the damage he did with his kicks.”