BLACKBURN coach Dino Radice will be looking for commitment and consistency next season after a rollercoaster of a campaign finished with an 51-10 win against Egremont.

Radice’s young side had been in play-off contention at the turn of the year but tailed off badly in the second part of the season – so much so it took two late victories to ease relegation worries.

Now Radice, who has just completed his second full season as head coach, is calling on his players to show more commitment to the cause next season.

“If I had been able to select the same 18 or 19 players each week then we would have gone up,” said Radice. “For one reason or another, I wasn’t able to do that. Some situations are unavoidable, work or other commitments but there were too many situations when players did not play and that was not good enough.”

But Radice can take positives out of what he called an ‘up and down season’.

“We have a very young side with six or seven players under the age of 21 and they can only get better but only if they are willing to work hard.

“It has been an up and down season for us, we started well but had a poor second half to the season.

“We had some big wins but we also had some big losses as well.”

Blackburn won eight of their 14 matches up until Christmas to give them a chance of finishing in the top two in North Lancs/ Cumbria Division.

However, four wins from the remaining 12 games saw them looking down rather than up.

Two wins in the last three games, against St Benedicts and already relegated Egremont but a gloss on the season as Blackburn finished in 10th place.

Radice added: “Where we finished in the table was just not good enough so we will definitely be looking to improve next season.”