Dewsbury Rams head coach Lee Greenwood reflected on his sides 34-0 defeat against York City Knights on Saturday night.
On the loss, Greenwood said: “You are never happy when you lose and you are never happy losing to nil either, because it means your attack wasn’t very good and then you don’t like conceding 34 points because it means your defence wasn’t very good. I don’t want to say it was expected but I probably wanted to see some more out of some people, just so they can put themselves into contention really.
“It showed what the coaching staff probably already knew, some lads aren’t quite ready for this level yet, we have just spoke about it in there that it will be like that every week if not tougher than that. Some lads have got a bit to go yet before being ever ready for this level, and that is just the harsh reality of it.
“That was what this game was about, people got eighty minutes regardless of what was going on. We said that before the game, we brought seventeen players and that was for a reason, we didn’t want to make subs for the sake of it. So then when it does come to round one we can sit and have a good conversation with people and say why they are not in the team, everyone has had a fair chance over the four friendlies.
“In all four games I wasn’t bothered about the result if being honest, I know it was the Yorkshire Cup and it would have been nice to win every game and lift the trophy. However for where we are at it was about getting to know the players as quickly as we can and knowing where we are at. It has all been about getting ready for game one really, we have got new coaching staff obviously myself as new head coach. There is a number of lads who were here last year and a number of new lads who have come in as well. We need to get the combinations right quickly and we have tried different things to give everyone a fair chance, I am a firm believer of giving people a fair chance.
“That is done now, we have a couple of weeks training and then Rochdale comes, it does get a bit more ruthless if we are being honest, and that is when the serious stuff starts, no minutes will be handed out for the sake of it, you are into it.
“I never thought for one moment that bringing all the lads in, all of them would be Championship ready and we couldn’t have told you which would be ready and which weren’t going to be ready. Some lads have shown us that they are up to this level which has been a positive over pre-season. Some lads aren’t quite there and some may never be there. That is what pre-season has been for and that is why we have used them like we have.
“Some lads I think won’t be quite ready at the start of the season but over the course of it I think they will get better. It’s hard to get them the game time in because some of them have had slight improvements over each friendly as we have given them things to work on.”
Greenwood continued: “York are a lot further down the track than we are, although they only got promoted last year what James (Ford) has done here is fantastic. They are a lot further down the track than we are, what you saw tonight was one very settled team, that has only added one or two players over the years, and one team who is just at the very start of it’s journey.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done, it isn’t going to be done in the next few weeks or months, there is a culture and attitude change that needs to be happen on the playing side and that is what we are going through now. We are at level one of that if you are looking at ten levels, we are way off where we need to be and where we want to be going forward, how quick we get through these levels I am not sure, a bit is on us as staff and a bit is on the players. Hopefully when we get to the competitive games and put out our strongest team we can go through the levels quickly.
“The score line doesn’t make for good reading, am I bothered no, it was more about the lads getting game time and seeing where we are at. Hopefully it won’t be 34-0 in game two.”
