London Broncos show ‘loads of character’ in Super League reverse against Hull

Mike Eccles felt his London Broncos side showed “loads of character” in Sunday’s Super League defeat at Hull.

The newly-promoted Plough Lane-based club have lost all three of their fixtures this season.

Broncos’ tries were scored by Hakim Miloudi (two), James Meadows, Lee Kershaw and Robbie Storey. Oli Leyland could only convert twice.

That proved to be the difference with Hull’s Darnell McIntosh kicking four of the tries notched up by Nick Staveley, Matty Russell, Lewis Martin, Fa’amanu Brown and Morgan Smith.

Broncos, Castleford Tigers and Leigh Leopards are all yet to collect their first point in Super League.

The South Londoners have scored 28 points but conceded 102 – the most in the division.

“It’s a goal of mine this year to develop the team and obviously help develop the club – but I also want to add value to the competition,” said Eccles, right, director of rugby and performance at Broncos.

“It was hopefully a good spectacle on the TV.

“There was loads of character – that’s what we’re all about.

“We are always going to be written off and we understand the challenge that we face this year. I’m just really happy with the way they fought.

“Arguably we deserved the win. We made it tough.

“We lost Sid yesterday (Saturday) in the warm up and we lost Dean Parata a minute into the game – he is a massive influence on how we play.

“Marcus Stock has gone out there and done 78 minutes in his third ever Super League game. Some of the heart they showed was really, really pleasing.

“Even though I’m speaking with emotion straight after the game I can see there are loads of positives for us to pick out of the game.

“Our kicking game was rubbish last week and I was clear about that in our review. We were very complimentary about the way Catalan kicked the ball and made it a contest for our back five – we just didn’t do that last week.

“This week we put a lot of focus on that and also on self-control. When we see a bit of space I never want to take away the instinct of the halves to run the ball if they see space – but we’re not in games at the minute.

“We’ve been out of games by half-time in the first two weeks, so we have to build into games. A massive part of that process is our outcomes and our kicking game.

“Our long kicking game was good – we played the percentages well. Our short kicking game was great, we put some great kicks that we could compete for and scored four tries off that.”

Eccles was pleased with the contribution of Miloudi.

“I put him on the wing today and he gives us that aerial threat,” said the Broncos boss. “He gives us all types of threats. He is a magic player – there were a few nice touches from him.

“We threw a full-back there at the end as well. We threw Oli Leyland in at nine and we’re just having to manage the variables because Dean was scheduled to go into nine at some stage.”

Broncos are at home to Wigan Warriors on Saturday (3pm).

The visitors have a 100 per cent record after their first two matches.

PICTURES: SWPIX