Whitehaven boss James Coyle hailed his side’s 29-0 win over Featherstone on Sunday as the team’s best performance this season.

Haven, who were on a run of three successive defeats, stunned the Rovers on their own turf as they held a 12-0 lead at the break and then added a further 17 points in the second half to record the most unlikely of victories.

Although Haven have scored more points in other fixtures this season Coyle says he was most impressed with the effort from one to 17 on Sunday.

“We’ve always believed we’ve been a good team,” he said.

“We had to look at getting it right for a full 80 minutes.

“It was more impressive than our win at Doncaster, there we flooded into a lead and against Featherstone our structure was perfect but it was about working harder in defence and that got us the result.”

Although Haven missed out on eighth spot in the Championship and face an additional away game in the Super 8s, Coyle, pictured, wants his side to carry the momentum from Sunday’s result into the start of the split a week on Sunday.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve been a bit loose with teams rolling on top of us and controlling the speed of the game,” he said. “Our little efforts made the difference on Sunday, it’s those that go unnoticed in the stands but they count and we did all those well.

“The lads were enthusiastic and we were a bit more aggressive with our carries.

“We kept asking questions of their defence and they failed to answer some of them. I’m really pleased with how we defended and worked for each other.

“It’s a long year and there are seven games to go, last season there were only 26 games and we’ve played 23 so far.

“The lads might be used to winding down but we need to keep that intensity going.”