Batley Bulldogs ‘gutted’ to miss out on ‘life experience’ trip to Toronto

The game is being played at KCOM Craven Park (5pm) after the Super League clash between Hull KR and Catalans Dragons.

Toronto are staging ‘home’ matches in this country until the end of the Canadian winter which means a trip of 62 miles for Bulldogs instead of 3,429.

However, Batley coach Matt Diskin insisted he was disappointed with the switch for tomorrow’s Sky-televised game, despite a 64-18 drubbing at Lamport Stadium last July.

“We are a bit gutted we’re not going to Toronto,” Diskin said. “It was a fantastic experience last year and for the part-time boys it’s something they rarely get to experience.

“There was a difficulty getting a team together, but it’s a tough division playing against full-time teams.

“The boys need some reward for that and last year in Toronto they got chance for a life experience. For us to miss out, the boys are gutted.”

Batley have lost five of their opening six games and are preparing to face a table-topping Wolfpack team who suffered their first defeat six days ago when they were crushed 46-16 at Toulouse Olympique.

Diskin, whose team are 10th in the table, knows how tough tomorrow’s task is, but said his focus is on getting an improved performance from last Sunday’s 16-6 loss to Bradford Bulls, particularly in attack.

“We’ve got to keep concentrating on trying to do the small things well,” Diskin said.

“It doesn’t get any easier against Toronto, with them coming off a loss. “For me they shouldn’t have lost a game all year so for them to lose away at Toulouse is a really disappointing result and one against the form books.

“So for us we are up against it, really up against it, but we’ll get to training and work hard as we always do. There’s no lack of effort or of working hard.

“There’s a mental block for some reason why it’s not transferring from the training field to the playing field. That is something we’re working hard to address.”