Blackburn 28

Firwood Waterloo 3

DINO Radice admitted there was a sense of relief in the changing room after Blackburn ended their four-game losing streak, but said it will mean nothing if they don’t follow up with a victory at De la Salle on Saturday.

It has been a tough run of games for the men from Ramsgreave Drive with successive defeats to Birkenhead Park, Stockport, Carlisle and Manchester seeing Blackburn slip from second to 10th in North One West.

While the poor run in the league was broken up with a Lancashire Cup semi final win over Burnage, Radice said he is glad to see his side halt their slide down the table.

“A sense of relief was the overwhelming feeling in the changing room after the match,” said Radice. “We always knew that was going to be our toughest run of games so far this season and so it proved.

“But it was the manner of some of the defeats that was disappointing. We were awful against Stockport, probably the worst I have seen us play.

“Last time out against Manchester there were signs of improvement. We outscored them in the try count and still lost which you don’t normally do.

“But to end our losing run against a side like Waterloo in front of a decent size crowd was very pleasing.”

Blackburn now have a run of winnable games in the run up to Christmas that could seen them back in the top four by the end of 2018.

But Radice has warned his players not to take anything for granted - starting at Mancester side De La Salle at the weekend.

“We had a great win over Waterloo on Saturday but that will mean nothing if we can’t follow up with another win against De La Salle,” he said.

“They may be bottom of the table but if we don’t go with the right attitude, we’ll be in trouble.”

After De La Salle, Blackburn host Penrith then travel to Broughton Park before a break for the festive period.

He said: “We have a great chance now to put a string of results together in the lead up to Christmas and get our season back on track.

“But we can’t be complacent and we all have to work very hard to make that happen.”

Against Waterloo, Blackburn ran in four tries, the last of which came in the last play of the game to bring up the bonus point.

From the start Burn were pressuring Waterloo and they opened the scoring when they got a shove on from a scrum close to the Waterloo line and Sam Gale went from the back of the scrum and just had long enough arms to stretch and score.

Leon Fifield kicked the conversion.

Waterloo came back but the Burn defence held firm and managed to relieve the danger.

In the 25th minute, a Waterloo centre was shown a yellow card for a high tackle. However there were some verbals towards the referee and, as a result, a second yellow was shown resulting in a red.

Burn quickly took advantage with their second try on 28 minutes.

From a penalty within their own 22, Waterloo missed touch, Fifield gathered the ball and fed back inside to Tom Burtonwood who brushed aside a defender and ran on to score. Fifield then added the extra points. Waterloo replied with a penalty and they trailed 14-3 at the break.

Blackburn scored a third try in the 50th minute when Corey Logan ran in from 30 metres out, Fifield again adding the conversion.

But Burn had to wait for the last play to pick up the bonus point when Marc Maher rounded off a fine move with Fifield making it four kicks out of four.