VICTORIOUS Whitehaven coach Gary Charlton admitted that despite lifting the Ike Southward Memorial Trophy against rivals Workington Town, his side were ‘poor’.

Haven won the derby clash 24-18 with a try in the dying minutes from Callum Phillips, converted by Jake Moore, but it was a scrappy affair.

And Charlton said there was still a lot for his side to work on ahead of the start of the Championship season.

“To be honest we were pretty poor, the ball control was non existent,” he said. “We gave Workington too much ball in good areas, they didn’t have to work for it.

“It’s a pre-season game and you can tell it is but the positive is that we were better than we were last week.

“We have to be fit to do all the tackling that we did but we just didn’t control the ball the way we should have.

“There are positives and there are negatives but we will work on it on the training field.

“We will have three sessions on the field this week and get ready for North Wales now and hopefully see another improvement.”

Town coach Chris Thorman was more positive, after his side pushed their rivals all the way, with the result in doubt until the last couple of minutes.

“I think it was more positive than negative from our point of view,” said Thorman.

“Coming to Whitehaven you know what to expect. On a long grassy, muddy field, you know what you are going to get and tough uncompromising, physical opposition.

“I said all this to the boys and I thought they fronted up well and matched them for most parts of the game, apart from a couple of lapses at marker play.

“I was really happy with our physical preparation and defensive attitude and on top of that I thought we created some really nice tries.

“Some of the stuff that we have practised came off and I found out a little bit more about some individuals, so overall, pretty happy.

“We expect a similar opposition in Barrow next week, very direct. But we will focus on Workington Town and some of the stuff we need to improve on from today.”

There were some injury blows for both sides with Haven new boy Brett Carter pulling his hamstring and Glenn Riley dislocating his knee.Both are expected to have three to four weeks on the sidelines. And Town’s Caine Barnes was going for an x-ray after he was helped from the field, unable to put weight on his leg.