Last updated at 09:33, Saturday, 07 April 2012

Whitehaven boss Don Gailer joined Workington coach Gary Charlton in hailing Town after they claimed the derby spoils in emphatic style at the Recre yesterday.

Gary Charlton

Charlton revealed how his side’s basic plan paid off with Town’s pack taking control in the 30-12 victory over their neighbours.

“We set out a simple game plan to get to the back end of our sets, kick downfield, tackle hard and in numbers, and slow them down,” Charlton said.

“In defence we were really good, and attacking-wise we pushed when we had to, and all the little things we ask in a game we did today, and that’s the result. We asked questions of Whitehaven and they fell a bit short today.

“Everybody knows Workington Town have a good pack of forwards, and if they get on top we usually come out winning.

“We’ll keep on doing what works well, but if the lads later have to come up with something different, I’m sure they are good enough to do that.

“We like four forwards on the bench and rotating them. They are probably not getting as much game time as they would like, but it’s working for us, and we won’t change it until we have to.”

Gailer was unhappy with his side but believes they were beaten by a top team at this level.

“They are an awesome side,” Gailer said. “They have a good balance with big forwards who run well with the ball and unload, and their halves dictate play.

“Not only were we out-muscled, their halves totally outplayed our halves.

“It’s something we have to fix up.

“We spoke about pride and how they belted us last time, and how we had to stand up in front of our crowd, and we didn’t do it.

“Players have to look in the mirror and say ‘am I up to this grade?’ It’s just not good enough. If I was in the middle I would be ashamed to put in that sort of performance.”

Chris Smith suffered a jaw injury in the first-half, leaving Haven without a specialist dummy-half in the second period.

Gailer added: “Chris looks like he might have a fractured jaw. We are hoping it’s just a bang on the jawline, but he copped an elbow and that ruined him for the next 45 minutes.

“We lost our hooker and that hurts. I was shuffling Lee Doran and Ben Karalius in at dummy-half, and that takes away a bit of attack on the edge of the ruck.

“It’s probably one of the only weeks I haven’t run with two hookers and you get caught out.

“Today was really going to be about forwards and we took the punt with the one hooker and it didn’t pay off. We still got beat in the middle.”

First published at 08:58, Saturday, 07 April 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk