After a thrilling west Cumbrian derby, both coaches Gary Charlton and Chris Thorman admitted they were disappointed not to have sneaked a victory.

In the end, the spoils were shared after a 12-12 draw, watched by a superb crowd of 2,360 at the Recreation Ground.

But both men said they were gutted not to have grabbed the two points on offer, with Haven gunning for the league title and Town fighting to stay in the League One play-off places.

“For the neutral I guess it was a very enjoyable and competitive encounter and I knew it was going to be like that,” said Town boss Thorman.

“But I’m disappointed if I’m honest. I thought with our game management at the end, where we had opportunities to kick drop goals, we didn’t manage as well as we could have.

“If we had executed better in the first half, and I know it was a bit greasy and it was wet and if we had executed some of our plan a little more effectively and efficiently and been tidier with our skill, I thought we would have scored a couple more tries.

“But that’s taking nothing away from Whitehaven as I thought their goal-line defence in the first half was excellent. They just find a way to turn up for each other and are a fit, resilient side.

“So it’s hard to be too disappointed but it does feel like a missed opportunity.”

His views were echoed by Whitehaven coach Gary Charlton who felt his side suffered a little from nerves in the big encounter.

He added: “I thought everything we’ve done all year, completed, cut our errors and penalties down, and then today it went out of the window and we gave Workington too much ball.

“I think there were a few nerves in there but ultimately, when the first tackle goes in, the nerves should go. But we came up with too many errors, gave away too many penalties and didn’t do what we’ve done all year.

“You expect it to be lively in a derby and the first tackle was big and strong and they coughed up the ball but we didn’t build on it, and we came up with daft errors ourselves.

“I couldn’t knock their effort and defensively we were pretty good, although we switched off for one of the tries. But, ultimately, you can’t win a game of rugby without the ball.

“We got away with a point today. If we had as much ball as Workington had today I think we would have won but we didn’t.

“It was a tough evenly-matched game. II would have liked us to have looked after the ball but there was not a lot in it. We went there at the start of the year and got a result and they wanted to do that to us today.”