‘We showed a little bit of disrespect to London’ - Craig Lingard ‘massively disappointed’ with Batley Bulldogs’ attitude in Broncos defeat

The Bulldogs found themselves 14-0 down and although a Dale Morton double at the start of the second half gave Batley some hope, a Bill Leyland try, which added to first half efforts from Dean Parata and Illiess Macani, swung the momentum back in favour of the visitors, who held on for a deserved victory.

“Massively disappointed,” revealed Lingard after the 20-18 defeat. “I thought in the first half we started with a lack of intensity, a lack of intent, a lack of enthusiasm and they are all controllables that you have got yourself. It is not a skill-based thing. That is all internal as an individual. I think London did that a lot better than us in the first half and deservedly went in 12 points up at half time.

“We started the second half with a little bit more intent and enthusiasm about us and got back into the game. But, again, a few little errors that we could control and momentum swung a little bit and London grabbed a deserved win.”

He added: “We were just dumb. Real, real dumb. London defended scrumline to scrumline and we just went one-out carries, real soft carries, real low aggression carries and we didn’t punch through the other side and we didn’t look like we were going to break any tackles and London just got in and dominated the ruck.

“We were just real, real dumb, not smart, not looking at what was in front of us and we didn’t react to it. They are too good a team. I think we showed a little bit of disrespect to London. I felt we looked at the line up and saw who wasn’t playing rather than who was playing and thought we could just turn up, put our boots on and win the game.

“Rugby has got a really good habit of biting you on the backside if you do that. Hopefully it is a reality check for us.”

With the Bulldogs looking to respond to Parata’s second minute try, Jimmy Meadows attempted a looping pass towards Morton, but it was intercepted by Macani, who raced 90 metres downhill to extend London’s lead.

“It’s a swing is that one,” Lingard said. “I think Jimmy has gone for the miracle ball over the top when he could have just played through. If Jimmy makes that pass we say what a great pass it is. It’s one of them that either comes off or it doesn’t.”

Meadows did convert a penalty on the hooter to make it 14-2, and a two score game, at the interval. And, ten minutes into the second half, the Bulldogs had got back to within two points thanks to Morton’s quick-fire double. But Batley failed to capitalise on the momentum they had created for themselves. Lingard said:

“We started the second half how we wanted to start the game but, again, we went away from what was working. There was a tackle four, six again, for a ball steal, then another six again and a penalty and they ended up scoring a really soft try on the line - we had three or four men in the tackle and he’s wriggled free.

“Momentum is a really big thing in rugby league and when you’ve got that momentum, particularly here when you’re playing downhill, what you don’t want to do is hand that momentum on a plate back to the opposition and that’s what we did a number of times, instead of doing what was getting us that success.

“We just handed the momentum back to London time and time again and they are too good a team.”

While Lingard was critical of his side, he did admit to having “sympathy” for the team, especially as only 14 players were available to train last week.

He said: “I am really disappointed and I am really dirty on the players at this moment but I have also got a lot of sympathy for the players because they are busted. They are really shot to bits are the players and they have been shot to bits for three or four weeks now.

“We had 14 players train on Tuesday. What can you do with 14 players? I’ve tried to bring some people in but there’s no sign of any intention of bringing anybody in, so we’ll just keep going with these broken players and busted players and keep putting them through the mill and sending them off to work on Monday morning so they can work full time and we’ll get them back in on Tuesday and see if we can get more than 14 players on the training field this week.”

He added: “We have got to try and pick them up. The early physio report is that four people need looking at on Tuesday from the 17 people who have played today. Am I going to get anything impactful on Tuesday? The high likelihood is no.”