A COMBINATION of injuries and ill-discipline saw Sedgley Tigers crash to their sixth defeat of the season at rivals Otley on Saturday as the Park Lane outfits stuttering run in National League Two North continued.

The Tigers, who were missing Oliver Parkinson, Matt Lamprey and George Hymes, slipped to sixth place in the table following the 39-10 defeat – their fifth loss in nine league fixtures.

But coach Geoff Roberts is hopeful his side can rekindle last season's form in the second part of the campaign to put their promotion ambitions back on track.

"There was plenty of individual effort but again the collective team performance is just not clicking at all," said Roberts.

"It's been like it all season. We get glimpses of it, but then it's gone again.

"Hopefully we'll have a reverse of last year where we had a super first half of the season and stuttered in the new year.

"We were depleted but whether it would have made a difference to the scoreline I'm not sure.

"They just seemed to be up for it a lot more than us.

"They went into an early lead and just kept piling the pressure on.

"We did have a better spell in the second part of the first half and scored two tries.

"I think if we could have come out in the second half and nailed the first try early on it might have helped but Otley just threw everything at us.

"They had all the territory and we didn't have any. For the whole of the second half we just seemed to be in our own 22, defending."

Roberts also expressed his concern at the number of penalties his side have been conceding in recent matches.

"We do seem to be getting on the wrong side of the referee and it's something we really need to address as it was a massive factor on Saturday," he said.

"Otley got penalty after penalty, kicked for the corner, for the line-out, and we were under pressure all the time.

"It's indiscipline and doing stupid things. We are going to look at the videos and identify what the penalties are for and who's committing them and we'll look at the pattern, and sit down with the lads and say we've got to sort this," he said.

The Tigers' only points came courtesy of two unconverted Curtis Strong tries midway through the first period, and Roberts was quick to praise the winger's performance.

"Curtis played probably one of his best games for us," he said.

"Obviously he's a winger so he's on the end of it all but having said that they were tries that needed some work to be done and he did well to score them."

With third-placed Chester also losing at the weekend, Roberts is hoping the Park Lane outfit can bag an early Christmas present on Saturday with victory over lowly Stockport to leapfrog them in the table.

"You'd expect us to have a nailed on win at home. You never take anything for granted but you'd certainly expect that.

"It will be a good day at the club. Everyone loves the Christmas fixture.

"It would be a lovely early Christmas present if we could get a cracking win and everyone else that's vying for third and fourth place lose."