Women’s Head Coach, Mike Grady has offered his reflections on his team’s 4-12 defeat to Swinton Lionesses in the Challenge Shield.
A tough afternoon, in red-hot conditions, saw a tight contest with our local neighbours go right to the wire. Sammi Simpson scored early for Swinton, with Shannon Stephens adding a second midway through the second-half.
Lauren Ellison crossed for the Reds to hand us some hope, but a missed conversion ended any chance of a late revival.
Reflecting on proceedings post-match, Grady told us: “A tough game. Two really good teams going at it for the full 80 minutes. It was a tough grind and Swinton just came out on top, which is disappointing. One for the neutral as they say, but it’s disappointing for us.”
“They worked hard, it was a tough day, the suns out and it’s really hot – but it’s the same for Swinton, so you can’t take anything away from both sides. We were okay, Swinton were just that little bit better, hence they took the win.”
On what went wrong for his team, who had been flawless up until this point, he added: “I just think we failed to control the ruck today. We’ve been really good in defence over the cup competition, but we struggled today. Then, you’re ultimately on the back foot and it leads to points against us, which happens.”
A few weeks off for the girls leads us straight back into women’s Championship action, where they will lock horns with Featherstone Rovers at the same venue.
Grady persisted that the team have to remember the positives signs they’ve shown in the opening weeks of the season.
“We have – 100%,” he began when asked about building on their win against Sheffield Eagles a fortnight ago, “We’ve got to put that game to bed now and move on to the next week. Ultimately, we’ve got to learn from it – as players, us as staff – we have to learn from it.
“But, ultimately, the focus moves to the league now and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into that now.”
Tap the video above to watch our interview with Mike post-match.
