Batley Bulldogs: Matt Diskin determined to deliver ‘top-five’ finish to 13-game mini league

A poor start to the year has effectively shattered Bulldogs’ hopes of a play-offs spot, leaving them ninth in the table, eight points behind fifth-placed York City Knights, with 13 rounds remaining. They hold a seven- point advantage over Swinton Lions who are in the second relegation spot so there seems to be little at stake, but coach Matt Diskin has other ideas about that.

“If you had a league table for the second half of the season, we are aiming to be in the top five of that,” Diskin confirmed.

“We had a bad start to the year and probably ruined any outside chances of anything above that, but what we can do is concentrate on the second half of the year.

“We got off to a win [over Dewsbury Rams two days ago] and we’ve got another 13 games to go.

“We will knock them off one by one.

“At the end of that, if we are in a good position we will be happy.”

Diskin is confident Bulldogs can finish strongly. And the Bulldogs’ boss predicted: “The teams above us have had good wins, but at some stage they are going to pick up losses.

“We are hoping the majority of ours have been picked up in the first half of the year and we can go on a bit of a run now.”

The Summer Bash victory over Bulldogs’ neighbours, Dewsbury Rams, eased Batley further away from the danger zone, but Diskin said that was not an issue.

“We are never, at any point, looking back,” he insisted.

“We are constantly looking up, we are not a team in that negative mindset thinking ‘we need to finish above them’.

“We are looking at what we can do and who we can chase down.

“That always has been and always will be our mentality.”