Chris Thorman was left frustrated that his Workington Town side were unable to continue their run of good form against Newcastle Thunder on Sunday, but backed his side to learn the lessons presented by the narrow 30-22 loss on Tyneside.

“The start of the game was disappointing, where we were not where we need to be from a number of points," said Thorman. "Our marker play, honesty on both sides of the ruck and willingness to put your body in front of people wasn’t good enough, and that's kind of what we've hung our hats on since I’ve been here.

“I’ve preached that, driven that and the players have bought into it and unfortunately in the first 15 minutes, not doing that is what allowed Newcastle to get into the game as much as they were.

“Newcastle are a going to be there or thereabouts all year so it’s a good marker for us and it’s a loss that we'll learn from and will be better for it.”

Regrouping after that start, Town had the measure of their hosts and clawed themselves level at break, with the hosts testing his side as expected.

“Newcastle did exactly what I thought they were going to do. They challenged us with a bit of direction change, challenged our honesty and we were found wanting in that first quarter of an hour, but the response to that was good from where on in.”

Reflecting on large portions of the match where Town were on the front foot, Thorman said: “We had the ascendency and the momentum; we scored a fortuitous try to get us to 18-6 but I thought after that we fell back into what we needed to do offensively. We generated some good ruck speed and scored off some good offensive shape.

“I was disappointed to concede the first score in the second half when we did because from our point of view, it probably should have gone the other way.”

Commenting on the last-ditch defensive effort from Newcastle’s Lewis Young that stopped what seemed to be a certain try for Caine Barnes, Thorman added: “It was a good one on one tackle. Caine is a big human being and a big powerful back rower. Nine times out of ten, he scores that, but it was a really good cover tackle.”