Featherstone Rovers: Defence the cornerstone to upturn in form says Ryan Carr

Rovers have climbed to fourth in the Betfred Championship after crushing Bradford Bulls 42-4 at LD Nutrition Stadium, Post Office Road, yesterday.

That was their fourth successive win and avenged two one-point defeats at Odsal earlier this year.

They have scored 42 points in each of their last two games, against York City Knights and Bradford and 56 in their fixture before that, away to Rochdale Hornets.

“We are getting there,” Carr said of the progress made by his team.

“But it is just one at a time for us.

“I say it every week, but it’s true – we can’t afford to look anywhere else but the next game.

“We are just focusing on playing as well as we can and everything else will take care of itself.”

Carr was happy with the number of points his side scored against Bulls, but felt Rovers’ defensive effort was even more pleasing.

“It was a real grind in the first half,” he said. “We came in 10-0 up and we probably didn’t attack how we wanted to, but we defended great for the full-80.

“That’s the real take away for me, the way we defended. We only conceded one try, off a kick in the corner and that is really pleasing.”

Of the 32 points grabbed after the interval, Carr added: “The boys stuck to the game plan in the second half. They came back to what we were aiming to do in the first half, they showed a lot of maturity and got rewarded for it.”

Carr praised Jack Render, called up at full-back for the injured Ashton Golding and Josh Walters who switched to centre when dual-registered Alex Walker was recalled by Leeds Rhinos.