KEIGHLEY Cougars’ interim head coach Jy-mel Coleman has issued a rallying cry, insisting his side still have real belief despite losing games and key players.
They are just one point above the Betfred Championship drop zone ahead of a fascinating home game against fellow strugglers York this Sunday.
Cougars were humiliated by neighbours Bradford Bulls 74-12 at Odsal last Sunday, but Coleman believes that can be put to one side.
He said: “We’re all confident in what we can deliver.
“The boys are still turning up and putting in the hard work. There’d be no point in them being here if they didn’t believe and weren’t confident, but that’s not the case.
“I don’t expect to see a performance like we put in at Bulls again and I’m confident we can pull away from the relegation zone.”
He added: “I’m confident in the playing group. We’re a quality team but we’re just showing that in patches, so it’s about piecing it together.
“It’s not an excuse, but it’s been tough with the players that have gone and with the injuries we’ve had.
“I’ve lost a player during the team run in both of the last two weeks for example.
“We’re dealing with stuff behind the scenes too, so there’s moving objects there, but if you look where we are, we’re only four points off seventh and two off eighth.
“Results have gone against us when we’ve slipped up, and when we’ve nearly got the win, but a couple of victories and everything changes.
“We’re only just over halfway through the season too so there’s a lot of rugby league left to come.”
But that will be without the experienced Ben Crooks and Dane Chisholm, who have both left the club in the last three weeks, for Halifax and Featherstone.
They have followed fellow big names Luke Gale (Wakefield) and Brenden Santi (York) out of the door, with Coleman saying: “Those decisions are out of my control, and I just give my best with the team I have available.
“It’s never easy losing experienced players, and I’m always giving ideas of who to bring in to replace them.
“But above me, it has to be of benefit for the club, whether that be financially or them being the right personnel.
“It’s not all my decision, but the club have spoken about reinvesting the money we’ve saved from those players who’ve gone, so I’ll continue to bring names up and we’ll see who we can get in.”
As for the York clash on Sunday, Coleman said: “We’re not stupid, we know it’s a massive game, but we’re not looking at it differently to any other, we can’t afford to.
“Whitehaven (on June 25) we looked at that as a chance to get the better of a team close to us in the table and putting in a performance to do that.
“We got the win but maybe it was detrimental to our display against Bradford.
“We need to take things one game at a time, go out all guns blazing against York, and put in a typical Keighley performance.”
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