Whitehaven forward Ben Davies says his side can’t afford to have another slow start this season after his side’s 52-6 defeat to Halifax on Sunday.

The 26-year-old made reference the start Haven had to their season last year when it took six games to pick up their first win.

Batley’s 24-22 upset against defending champions Leigh shows that Haven cannot afford a repeat of last season’s form as teams around them in the league have also strengthened.

Haven trailed 18-0 just before half-time before Steve Tyrer finished his hat-trick to put Halifax 24-0 up at the break.

“That try was a bit of a killer and stuff like that breaks you a bit,” Davies said.

“18-0 down isn’t too bad and you can maybe come back, but it has an effect on you and heads can go down.

“We can’t let that happen and we need to bounce back quickly.

“We started the same last year and it took us a while before we got a kick up the bottom.

“We can’t leave it that late this time because the league has got even better and we ned to learn from it quickly.”

Haven struggled to contain a free-playing Halifax as Richard Marshall’s side scored nine tries.

Despite having a gameplan in place for the West Yorkshire outfit, Haven struggled to put this into practice.

“They are a good team. We weren’t at our best and it showed,” Davies continued.

“They were too fast and kept rolling us. It’s hard to get out of that and get going.

“The ruck is very important. If you win it you’ll have an easy game and if you don’t you’ll struggle.

“They dominated it and were offloading everywhere.

“We knew what they were going to do but knowing about it and stopping are different things. They showed they are a quality side.

“We’ve got two training sessions this week and our pitch isn’t in the best shape but we’re going to bounce back this week, it doesn’t matter who the opposition is.

“It’s on us to put things right.”