SHEFFIELD EAGLES coach Craig Lingard knows his side has to “string some wins together” to get out of trouble at the foot of the table, and says using injury problems as an excuse for poor results won’t help.
It’s been a tough first season at the Steel City Stadium for the former Keighley, Batley and Castleford coach.
He had to deal with the challenges of following the popular and long-serving Mark Aston and having a truncated pre-season, given he wasn’t appointed until December.
There has been a changeover of squad members, with centre or second rower Bayley Liu (to Bradford), prop Mitch Clark and winger Ben Jones-Bishop (both York), centre James Glover (Featherstone) and halfback Morgan Smith (Oldham) departing since the start of the season and forwards Nick Staveley (ex-Hull FC) and Martyn Reilly (Widnes), winger Billy Walkley (Keighley) and halfback Danny Craven (Oldham) coming in.
Injuries for a number of players have made it even harder for Lingard to field a settled side, with Castleford loanee Jenson Windley forced off during the 36-10 home defeat by York (Sheffield’s eleventh loss in 15 league games this year), leaving them without a recognised halfback on the field.
“That clearly impacted us, because we already had a hooker (Corey Johnson) playing alongside Jenson, then put (second rowers) Joel Farrell and Connor Bower, who we had to activate as 18th man because of other players failing head assessments, in there.
“They both had a real dig, but these are pivotal positions. It’s hard for a non-halfback to guide a team around, and the end-of-sets are affected, because you need someone who can put their boot through the ball.
“When you’re not doing that, you get boxed in, and we didn’t help matters by making the same old errors, so putting ourselves under too much pressure.
“But there’s only us who can help ourselves. We need to string some wins together.”