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Shaw’s faith earns reward

by Mike Floyd
17/ 6/2008

DARREN Shaw’s faith in his current squad was vindicated when his players turned on the style with a 56-22 victory against Swinton Lions at Park Lane on Sunday.

On his arrival at the club three weeks ago, the Hornets boss pledged his support for the players and said they would be given every chance to prove themselves. They have responded well with two wins and a draw.

Shaw’s only addition to the squad has been Australian hooker Janan Billings, who was released by Halifax because of their overseas quota and signed for Hornets last Thursday.

And it’s so far, so good for Shaw who said: "I haven’t had to say a great deal to the players. They have always had points-scoring in them, it was the defence which needed tightening up. Last week we were a little bit loose but today, overall, we were a lot better. At the end we let them in for a couple of soft ones but generally we were much better.

"I always said I would give the players an opportunity to show what they could do. And if I don’t need to bring players in I won’t.  At the moment, I’ve only brought Janan Billings in. We will keep assessing the squad as the season goes on and keep moving up.  Janan jumped on board with us late in the week, but he made a positive impact as soon as he came onto the field and bagged a try. But I thought all our substitutes made a good impact and got us on the front foot. We showed a lot more composure early on and we were a bit more patient.  We got off to a good start and we deserved the result. The second half we started off a little bit slowly, we tried to push the ball and we were lackadaisical, just expecting things to happen. But off the back of that we defended a lot of sets and a lot of penalties against us so it was a bit Jekyll and Hyde. But I saw positives in both sides, attack and defence."

Hornets first half performance was memorable as they ran in seven tries. It came on the back of fast flowing rugby, coupled with excellent discipline - a penalty count of 8-1 in their favour.

Both aspects pleased the Hornets coach who said: "The first half was good stuff. We still need to tidy up and we can get a bit loose in defence when the opponents have the ball, but that’s me probably being a little bit too harsh on the players. We scored some very good tries out there today and I know we have some very good players in the squad.

"It helps if the discipline is there. I just speak to the players about it and it’s how we react to a penalty against us, how quickly we react to it. Today it was a lot better although we gave away five at one stretch. But we responded and I can’t commend the players enough on the defensive side during that spell. We let them in for a couple of soft ones towards the end but by then I had taken my two half backs off and we probably lost a bit of direction.

"I now just want to work with them on a week to week basis and make sure our execution gets better. We still have 10 games to go and there’s a lot of footy to be played, a lot of tough matches in front of us. All I can ask is what they are producing at the moment. They work hard, listen tough which is good."