Last week at Batley proved to be one of those days when nothing went right.

In fact, the week leading up to the game threw some curve balls at us and left us short of a couple of important players even before kick-off.

Once we kicked off it just went from bad to worse and we lost a further three players in the first half who were injured and not able to go back on. Another two picked up knocks in the second half but had to stay on.

Up against that it was always going to be hard against a Batley team who know their famous slope like the back of their hand and in the end, we were just glad to be getting on the coach and going home to lick our wounds.

We are well aware that we also made things very hard for ourselves too and that has been the focus in training this week.

It is looking like we will be missing a fair few players for Saturday's game in London but nevertheless we are expecting a much improved performance albeit we could have had picked easier opponents than a full-time Broncos team!

It will be an early start and a late finish with all the travelling, so it is important we make sure we do not waste that by putting in a poor performance.

Although this is still only the third game of the Championship season we have seen already – as has every other team – that the intensity of the Championship does not have mercy on anybody and the injury problems we are having at present are, at least in part, due to the long, enforced lay-off that the lads had.

There is no substitute for match fitness and, in terms of rugby league, for the physicality of the game, so I think we are still in a period where the players' bodies are readjusting to those hits throughout the course of a game.

Several of the lads have commented how they feel like their body has almost relaxed because they haven't had those whacks week in, week out for 12 months and now they are going through a period where they are having to get used to it again.

In other words they can't wait for the days after a game where they struggle to get out of bed to go to work because they are so sore! Don't ever tell me these lads aren't dedicated.

It has been quite a week on the sporting front this week with everything that has been happening in the football world so for once rugby league has seemed like an oasis of calm!

It also finally looks like the weather might be improving for training nights which means some of the scenes in winter where lads were constantly soaked to the skin and full of mud and unable to have a shower because of the Covid protocols around use of indoor facilities might finally be behind us.

Fingers crossed for Saturday and have a good week.