By Claire Cameron

 

SEDGLEY Tigers coach Geoff Roberts believes gaining promotion from National League Division Two North will be tougher than ever this season.

The Tigers crashed to their first defeat of the season at home to leaders Ampthill & District on Saturday, slipping to fifth place, six points behind the Bedfordshire men.

“The results in the league have been strange so far this season,” said Roberts.

“Ampthill put 66 points on Leicester Lions last week and this week the Lions have tonked Stourbridge, who are one of the favourites.

“At the minute it just doesn’t stack up.

“Ampthill have to crack somewhere and I do think they will. It’s whether they can handle some teams who really move the ball around.

“Maybe, with Stourbridge cracking and us being beaten, the league will be a little more open at the top than it was last season.

“We have Leicester at home next week (2.30pm) so it will be interesting to see how we do against them.”

The Tigers had made the perfect start with two tries and a conversion in the opening five minutes of the match, but ill-discipline allowed the visitors to gain the upper hand midway through the first half and from then the Tigers struggled to regain control of the game.

“They looked shell-shocked in the opening 20 minutes. We were all over them and scored the opening two tries,” said Roberts.

“They didn’t know how to cope with us but over the course of the game we lost that initiative “There were a couple of things that caused our undoing. Callum McShane got a cut eye and had to go off and his replacement Stephen Collins came on and immediately got sin-binned.

“Ill-discipline is something you can’t afford in the big games.

“In that period when we were down to 14 men Ampthill came back at us and we never really recovered.”

Before the game Roberts said the Tigers would have to be “switched on” against the newly-promoted side.

It appeared his team had got the message when Callum McShane scored a brace of tries and Matt Riley added a conversion in the opening five minutes to lead 12-0.

However, the visitors fought back to within two points at the break with a try from Jonathan Raven and a conversion and penalty from Joseph Tarrant.

Ampthill took control of the second half with replacement Kieran Duffin and Michael Di Ponio going over for tries, with both conversions again coming from the boot of Tarrant.

Stephen Collins scored a penalty for the Tigers and captain Juan Crous went over for an unconverted try.

But Tarrant added his second penalty and Daryl Dyer grounded a 66th-minute try as the visitors left the Tigers licking their wounds.