Rock wants Otley to reduce the error count (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Tom Rock wants Otley to reduce the error count

5:50pm Thursday 20th September 2012 in Sport By Alan Birkinshaw, Weeklies Sports Editor

Player-coach Tom Rock insists there is lots of work to be done despite his Otley side having won their first three SSE National League Two North games.

Last Saturday’s 39-33 win at Stockport highlighted both their good and bad points.

He said: “We are still coughing up too much ball in the wrong areas and it is costing us points.

“For the first 35 minutes on Saturday, we played as well as I have seen us perform but our dominance wasn’t reflected in the score of 10-0.

“Unfortunately we never played anything like as well after the break, despite going 31-7 up. We made silly errors and let them get much closer to us than they should have done.”

Rock and his assistant Mark Luffman spoke to the players after the game about the performance and highlighted where things went wrong.

“Some we can address through our work in training and others will come as our young side become a little more battle-hardened.

“They need to know when to close a game down and also to ensure that they play in the right areas of the pitch.”

Otley, who are one of three unbeaten teams in the division, are at home to Bromsgrove this Saturday, and then come tough fixtures against Hull, Caldy, Stourbridge and Luctonians.

“It’s going to be a testing period for us,” said Rock. “I am delighted with the way we are progressing as a side, but we must manage expectations. We still have a long way to go, and this is a tough league.”