COVENTRY Bears suffered a third consecutive League One defeat on Sunday as they were beaten 40-16 at Workington Town.
The Bears crossed the line first in the opening ten minutes but Cameron Stewart’s try was disallowed.
Town did most of the damage in the first 25 minutes, punishing the Bears who dropped the ball three times, each resulting in a Workington try.
James Newton scored the first points following some good play by their big forwards.
Their next try was a solo effort from Jamie Doran who tricked his way past three Bears defenders before crossing the line.
And then the real damage was done by James Hambley who scored two tries, the first on fifteen minutes the next on twenty four.
In between those two tries the Bears managed to summon up their strength as Ben Stead kicked the ball for it to land just in front of the Workington posts where he ran on to it, picked it up and scored a fine try.
He also completed the job by taking and scoring the conversion himself.
However, after 24 minutes the hosts had 24 points on the scoreboard and that point-a-minute score rate looked very ominous.
The Bears did manage to put the brakes on, though, and no more points were added in the first half.
Coventry looked the better side in the first 15 minutes of the second half and an upset looked possible.
Workington perhaps showed their frustration as two of their players were sin-binned for foul tackles.
Rather than being weakened by this, the 11 remaining men worked together to put Tom Curwen crashing over for a try.
Then, as their numbers increased to 12, Oliver Wilkes added the home side’s sixth try.
A spectacular run by Ben Morris left the Bears defenders floundering in his wake as he scored Workington’s final try of the afternoon.
The Bears then had another two tries disallowed, to the disbelief of even the home fans.
Never say die has become a hallmark of Bears’ performances this season and Hayden Freeman lived up to this as he picked up a loose ball, kicked it over a Town defender and pounced on it over the line.
Stead added two more with the conversion.
And that wasn’t the end as Bears full back Jason Bass battered his way over the line with a minute to go, leaving the score at 40-16 on a day when things could have been much worse after a bad start.
Coventry make the trip to basement boys West Wales Raiders on Sunday.
