The Bramley Buffaloes found the going tough in their second National League Three match away at Coventry Bears losing 48-14.
The home side notched their first try on 7 minutes when Chris McBride powered over. Alan Robinson added a second soon after before an interception try from Scott Fenton increased the Buffaloes’ woes.
Bramley hit back just before the break with a well worked try orchestrated by hooker Simon Bowker. A smart kick to the corner was finished off by Kieron McDermott but the visitors went in at half-time trailing 18-4.
The Bears continued their dominance in the second half with 5 unanswered tries before Bramley’s man-of-the-match, Simon Bowker capitalized on some uncharacteristic weak tackling to touch down under the posts. Gavin Buckley added Buffaloes third score on 60 minutes with Shaun Flynn adding the two points.
However Coventry’s scoring spree continued with both John Fairhurst and Alan Robinson getting their second tries of the match.
Coach Phil Hellewell was philosophical on his side’s demise: “It was very disappointing and I was surprised by the standard of Coventry. We definitely underestimated them but this is a very quick and clearly very steep learning curve for the players.
“We’ve only been together for three months but we now have to turn this heavy defeat to our advantage and up the work rate in training. We still have some player recruiting to finalise and over the next two weeks we’ll be working very hard to retrieve the situation.
“Coventry were a strong well drilled team that put us under a lot of pressure and that isn’t something we were expecting. We’ll learn from that and go into the next game with a far more positive approach,” added Phil.
The Buffaloes have the chance to claw back some pride on Saturday 22nd May at Gateshead Storm before facing Warrington at Stanningley on May 29th . Bramley fans interested in traveling to the Gateshead game should contact 07802 190108 as there are spaces available on the coach.