SEDGLEY Park captain Garth Dew is calling on his side to bounce straight back from last weekend’s defeat at Rosslyn Park.

The 40-18 setback at the third-placed team ended the Whitefield men’s run of three straight wins and left them ninth in National League One.

Blaydon are just one point below the Tigers, and Dew is predicting another tough away encounter on Saturday, but believes his side is capable of getting back to winning ways.

And he is confident they can follow up with another victory at home to third-bottom Barking the following week when they will have reached the halfway stage of the season.

“Blaydon away is pretty tough,” Dew said. “Not many teams will win there, but they are beatable. Then the Barking game is definitely one we have to target.”

Before their recent good run, the Park Laners suffered three straight defeats which Dew hopes is the bad run out of the way.

“I expected us to have a difficult patch and we have had,” he said.

“Now, hopefully we can pick up one or two more wins and that will put us in a good position in mid-table at the halfway stage which will give us a platform to go on and build from there.”

Saturday’s defeat at Rosslyn was much closer than the scoreline suggested with Tigers just one point behind after a stunning try just after half time.

“We attacked well like we have been doing for the last few weeks,” said Dew.

“They are definitely beatable and we matched them in the first half. But we played a little too much rugby in our own half, missed tackles and gave away soft tries.

“This league is full of evenly-matched sides and home advantage and a couple of bounces of the ball can make all the difference in any game.

“We’re positive after three wins in a row and a good performance on Saturday. We we are building well.”

Tigers were on the back foot early on when Daniel Lloyd-Jones scored the first try on five minutes, Ross Laidlaw converting.

The Whitefield men should have had a try 11 minutes later when they failed to take advantage when a great run by Adam Lewis found Mike Dutton in space and he had three players outside him and one Rosslyn Park tackler in front.

Matt Riley pulled back three points with a penalty, and Tigers went ahead when Chris Parrott burst through the Rosslyn defence and found Riley inside who ran in Tigers’ first try on 21 minutes. Riley kicked the conversion.

The lead changed hands when Rosslyn Park’s speedy winger Stephen Parsons exploited space on the right on 29 minutes and Laidlaw kicked the conversion.

Tigers reduced the arrears to one point when powerful attacking play, combined with a rare lapse in concentration by Rosslyn, resulted in another successful penalty for Riley. But the last play of the half saw Dominic Shabbo touch down for a 19-13 lead at the interval.

The deficit was reduced to one point six minutes after the break with the try of the game. A superb display of 15-man rugby saw 17 phases of strong pick-and-go phases create space out wide right for the strong running Fergus Owen to power over.

With the conversion missed, Sedgley were one point behind and went on the offensive. But the home team took the game to the Tigers and Daniel Richmond went over for Rosslyn Park’s bonus point fourth try. The conversion was successfull kicked.

Sedgley’s attempts to chase the game saw them pay with two sucker punch tries for the home side which were both converted.