Phil Veivers commended his players’ reaction to a half-time roasting but it was still not enough to stop Town going down to a 36-32 defeat at Halifax.

The Workington coach laid into his side after they conceded five tries to trail 30-10 at the break, then watched them boss the second period – claiming four tries of their own, including three in the last 10 minutes, just falling short in their search for a first win in seven weeks.

Having shared 12 tries evenly, it was only the immaculate goal-kicking of Fax centre Steve Tyrer that separated the sides, leaving a rightly proud but hugely frustrated Veivers to comment: “I was very disappointed at what they dished up in the first half but very proud of what they came up with in the second.

“I told them that the first half was an embarrassment – there were too many one-on-one misses and some poor discipline and after taking some steps forward at Bradford (the previous week) it was the Workington that we have been trying to change.

“I told them to be proud of their shirt and be proud of Cumbria and, in the second half, I think they did that.”

“I thought we got done a couple of times with their tries – there were a couple of blatant forward passes – and a couple of dubious decisions at the back end too.”

Town, who now have almost a fortnight before their next game at Sheffield, remain bottom of the table and, following Oldham’s 16-14 victory over Featherstone, are now six points adrift of the rest.

Veivers added: “I was going to give them a week off to recharge the batteries.

“But when they came into the changing rooms at the end of the game it was the players who said let’s train this week, put in some hard work and try to carry on the momentum that we gained in that second half.”