Pragmatic Matt Diskin takes Batley Bulldogs’ ‘ugly win’ over a ‘pretty loss’

It followed three successive defeats in the Betfred Championship and Diskin conceded: “There weren’t a lot of positives for us other than in the first half we were good with the ball in hand and we got the result.

“We’ve got the monkey off our backs so let’s hope we can relax a bit and start to improve.

“We will take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day.”

Playing up the slope, Batley did the hard work before half-time as they built a 12-6 advantage.

Wayne Reittie added some vital contributions in defence and Diskin said: “He made a couple of decent reads, we numbered up wrong on a couple of occasions and he made some good decisions to come in and kill the ball, which was good from him.

“In the first half we were okay structurally in defence but, in the ruck area, we had no control or tempo and they played the ball way too quick.

“That’s as bad as I’ve seen us in the ruck area for the last six to 12 months so we need to improve that quickly.”

Of Batley’s attack, the coach stressed: “We need to be better and more clinical. In the second half we should have put them to the sword, but we didn’t.

“Fair play to Rochdale; they showed a lot of character and determination to stay in the game. They fed off the opportunities we gave them and made a real fight of it. If they keep doing that, they will pick up the wins they need as well.”

Batley have a short turnaround to Friday’s match at unbeaten Sheffield Eagles.

Diskin predicted: “It will be a tough game; they’ve started well. They’ve recruited well and taken some of our boys on that we didn’t retain here. We know they’ve got some quality to them and, on their day, they can perform really well.”