London coach takes the blame after horror first game of the season.
London Broncos coach Tony Rea took the bulk of the blame after his side got off to a miserable start to the new Super League season with a thumping 64-10 loss at Widnes.
It has been a pre-season of massive change for the capital side who have battled back from administration, have a new home ground and lost a whole host of senior figures from last year’s squad.
Rea has had to bring in 15 new faces and they clearly had still to knit together as a team, with Kevin Brown running in a hat-trick in Widnes’ 11-try rout on Sunday.
But with relegation reintroduced this season in Super League, the pressure is on for Rea to get it right, and fast.
“I am happy to be on the start line but this is a big learning curve,” Rea said.
“We clearly weren’t ready, but need to move on from here.
“I will take a fair lump of the blame, but there has been a lot of chopping and changing. We will be adding to the squad, but these players can do better.
“We have the potential and will be smarter than this in future.”
Elsewhere on Sunday, Leeds Rhinos produced a superb second-half showing to blow away Hull KR for a 34-6 victory.
The scores were level at 6-6 at the break but the game was broken wide open in the second half as Tom Briscoe scored a hat-trick of tries.
And Hull KR head coach Craig Sandercock, formerly the Newcastle Knights assistant, admitted afterwards the Rhinos back line had been too much for his team to handle.
“Their outside backs are world-class and they were way too good for us,” he said.
“We competed well but in the second half our kicking game was poor and they were too good.
“We knew we would have to be on our game but we were not on our edge like we would have liked.
“All our forwards had a dig with them, I thought we matched them there but their backs were too good for us.”
On Thursday, St Helens served a warning to their fellow Grand Final chasers with an impressive 38-8 victory over Warrington Wolves.
Former Penrith Panthers half-back Luke Walsh pulled the strings impressively for the Saints on his Super League debut but head coach Nathan Brown has warned his side not to get carried away too soon.
“Warrington have been so successful for so long, so to get the result was pleasing,” he said.
“We’re really rapt with what the guys did but we’re certainly not going to get carried away.
“It’s a good start but it’s about consistently doing well.
“Walshy had a lot of good contributions for us, built on the back of some of the forwards’ work.
“I thought our game management in the second half was actually quite poor but it’s clear to see what Walshy can bring to the team.”
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