SIMON SMITH - Our defence shone in second half at Morley

When we lost out 39-31 at their place in March they were the best team we faced throughout last season, and that includes the play-off with Blackburn.

They are a very strong side and have a very settled line-up which has been together for a few years now.

They scored three unconverted tries in the first half, which was very unusual for them as their kicker doesn’t often miss many.

We did well to keep in the game with a couple of penalties before the break and we defended superbly in the second half and kicked another penalty to stay in the contest.

After all the strong defence we had chances in the last 15 minutes to maybe nick the win, but we can take a lot of credit from winning the second half 3-0.

They were pushing for the fifth point in the second period but we did well to keep them out and to earn one point to their four is not a bad result.

I am more concerned with how we perform than where we are in the league table at the moment, and Saturday’s display gave me plenty of encouragement.

It is so tight in the division at the moment, we play at home to Pocklington on Saturday, who until last weekend were struggling but then they had a great win against Cleckheaton, who were third going into the game.

We are top but we have lost three games and won seven, whereas Pock are third-from-bottom having won three and lost seven, but so many of our games were very tight and could have easily gone either way, so this shows how closely-contested the division is.

Hopefully we could have Tom Harrison and Ben Martin back from lengthy spells out with injury in the new year.

With players such as these waiting in the wings it shows the quality and depth we now have in the Scarborough squad.

After the Pocklington clash we face another tough game at Malton & Norton, who will fancy their chances of another derby win after their success against us in the Yorkshire Shield a few weeks ago.