Workington Town head coach Phil Veivers remained upbeat, despite his side losing the Ike Southward Memorial Trophy on Saturday night. 

Town went down 12-6 at a muddy Recreation Ground, with Haven ending a six game losing spell to their neighbours with the win.

But after two pre-season games Veivers is pleased with a number of aspects of his side’s performances and believes any shortfalls can be fixed before the opening Championship game a week on Sunday. 

“I was happy with our fitness and both games prove that the players are fit and physical enough,” he said.

“There was good contact and our line-speed was great. Systems and structures are the easy things to fix. If that’s all I’ve got to fix after two trial games then I’m happy.” 

Town enjoyed enough territory in the second-half to ask questions of Haven’s defence but unforced errors crept into their game. 

“It’s disappointing to lose a derby game but we had our opportunities to win in the second half,” Veivers continued. 

“We dominated the second half and they didn’t really have a look-in. 

“We scored a nice try and then built some repeat sets but we’d cough the ball up on the first tackle and we did that on three occasions. 

“We got ourselves in a position to build pressure then let it off.”