Head coach James Coyle believes referee Callum Straw was too harsh as he reduced Haven to 12 men at Featherstone.

Dave Allen was sent off for dissent just 19 minutes into yesterday's match, forcing a change of tact for the west Cumbrians.

But, despite that, Haven were in with a chance of repeating last year’s shock league victory at Featherstone when they were only 14-12 behind in the closing stages.

Anthony Walker, playing on loan from Wakefield, Jordan Burns and Jessie Joe Parker scored tries for Coyle's men to ensure they ran their rivals close.

On the disadvantage caused by Allen's dismissal, Coyle said: "

Maybe a

bit of emotion got to the referee and, because of a few things said to him, he decided to send the player off, which I've never seen happen before for an incident like that.

"I thought a sin-binning to give him 10 minutes to calm down would have been sufficient. That one-man advantage so early in the game didn't hurt us too much at that stage and they didn't really open us up to score their tries.

"If we could have defended our goal line a bit smarter I think we could have prevented the late tries, rather than it being an energy thing. But it didn't help."

It was a backs-to-the-wall performance by Haven in which Coyle said he couldn't question the effort of his men.

But he added: "There were things we didn't quite get right, and we managed to defend for long periods of time.

"When the lads watch the video they will be disappointed to see how Featherstone ended up scoring their tries and they will realise they could still have won despite everything.
"We conceded a soft try in the first half after we looked like going into the break with a lead after soaking up all their pressure."