WHITEHAVEN suffered a tough defeat against top side Featherstone Rovers over the weekend. 

The west Cumbrian side took on the Yorkshire outfit on Sunday, losing 60-0 on home turf at The LEL Arena. 

Head coach Jonty Gorley said: "It didn't go very well, yes it was our third game in eight days which nowadays shouldn't be happening.

"We were busted, sore, knocked, and just fatigued, but I thought the first quarter of an hour we did alright. 

"Considering they've had a £1million budget and have NRL, international, and Super League players, they should really be in the higher division and they probably will be next season. 

"At the start when we were fresh we were okay, but then we became fatigued and started putting the ball down far too much.

"These teams don't need an invite to score, they're good anyways, and when you are going set for set they'll be looking to put 30 or 40 points on you at the best of times. 

"I'm disappointed with how they were regarding ball retention, we let them have it far too much and they completed about 50 per cent most of the game. 

"So when you're giving them that many balls in the right areas of the field they're going to score points because they are that good of a side.

"They're big, strong, and basically full-time athletes and that's the difference when they're going against a part-time team on a £160,000 budget who've been to work and had three games in eight days.

"It's done now, they'll have a week recovery, we've done some rehab, had a night off, and will reconvene on Thursday.

"Hopefully we'll freshen up a bit and prepare for Newcastle on Sunday which is a massive game for us. 

"We've had a mixed week. We went to Keighley and underestimated them then we sort of recalibrated the players and they went on to beat a good York side and then we were obviously down in the dumps because of what happened at Featherstone. 

"It's all about going into in with the right attitude."