Batley Bulldogs: Matt Diskin accuses players of ‘lacking respect’ in defeat to Barrow

Coach Matt Diskin described Bulldogs’ performance as “very poor” and fumed: “We showed a real lack of respect for the ball and probably the opposition.

“We talked all week about showing the respect Barrow deserved, but how we gave the ball away so easily showed a lack of respect for ourselves and the opposition and we had our pants pulled down and got burned because of it.”

Diskin felt it was a game Bulldogs lost rather than Barrow won. He added: “We gifted it to them.

“We turned too much field position over too easily. The tries we conceded were very poor, individual misses and offensively we were absolutely terrible.

“We have to have a look at ourselves as a group, our preparation – everything.

“We thought we were in a good place. We somehow have to address how the players are preparing individually for games because subconsciously they showed a real lack of respect for the competition and teams that are in it.”

Diskin pledged changes for Sunday’s derby at Featherstone Rovers.

“The players know there is a lot of competition for places and you will see changes because of this performance,” he warned. “That’s where we are at and the quality we’ve got in there. If you’re not going to perform somebody else is going to come and take your shirt and that will apply this week.

“I genuinely believe we’ve got a group that can achieve some really good things this year. We were always going to experience some adversity, we just didn’t anticipate that in round one. If we can take away the lessons we need to learn from that, mainly how individuals approach the game and prepare themselves, then we’ll be okay.”