WORKINGTON TOWN coach Jonty Gorley hopes to have a number of players back in the frame for the trip to Oldham on Sunday.
He is trying to hoist his side up the table from their current 16th position, and having been buoyed by the 22-14 Easter win at his old club Whitehaven, was frustrated by the 24-20 home loss to Midlands Hurricanes.
To compound his woe, star Australian fullback Zarrin Galea, halfback Don Wear and prop Ross Ainley, who faces around a month out with a shoulder injury, picked up problems.
Gorley is also missing seasoned frontrower Steve Scholey, but is hoping outside backs Oscar Doran and Spencer Fulton, prop Grant Reid and backrowers Mason Lewthwaite and Tuarae Rawhiti, the Kiwi signed from New South Cup side Western Suburbs over the close-season, will be back for the Oldham trip.
“We need as many bodies as we can with a busy spell of matches coming up,” he explained.
Workington have won two and drawn one of their nine league games so far, but Gorley, who is in his second season at the helm, believes the points tally should be higher.
“We are too often our own worst enemies,” he added. “We have shown we can compete in the new (merged) division, but we have to produce longer spells of dominance and cut out the individual errors which are costing us.”
Despite playing into a strong swirling wind, Workington were 8-6 up going into the closing stages of the first half against Midlands, but conceded what their boss termed a “soft” try just before the hooter, and couldn’t regain the lead.
“Even though we gave that score away, things were in our favour at half-time,” he added.
“There were stages of the second half when we had them on the rack, but we lost our way.”