London Broncos interim head coach Mike Eccles gave an honest assessment of his side’s Summer Bash performance against Sheffield Eagles at Headingly Stadium on Saturday.
The Broncos conceded four tries in the game’s concluding 12 minutes as Eagles quartet Kris Welham, Jason Bass, Josh Guzdek and Ben Jones-Bishop all crossed the whitewash to confirm a 12-38 defeat.
Broncos initially led the game through Dalton Grant’s early try but were pegged back by tries for Guzdek and Welham as Eagles led 10-6 at half time.
Blake Broadbent stretched Eagles’ lead to 10 points at the beginning of the second half before Will Lovell crossed over to make the score 16-12. It was 20 minutes later that Eagles’ late charge started.
Eccles was disappointed to admit the Broncos got ahead of themselves following a string of positive results and has vowed to correct any potential warnings of complacency when the squad travels to Newcastle on Sunday.
“Full credit to Sheffield, they played well and deserved the points,” said Eccles. “We got ahead of ourselves and did the opposite to what we wanted, it was very disappointing.
“Winning is fantastic because it injects confidence into any team. The downside is the positive press and publicity that comes with it which makes it easy for you to get ahead of yourself, and that’s what happened on Saturday.
“The 80-minute performance we’re always trying to achieve was way off. Sheffield made some errors in the first half which allowed us to get into the game.
“We could’ve been ahead at half-time, but overall we got what we deserved. We’re a much better team than what we saw on Saturday. We let ourselves down, but we’ll be back.”
London Broncos’ Betfred Championship campaign resumes on Sunday, August 7, at Kingston Park away to Newcastle Thunder. Kick-off is at 3pm and supporters unable to attend the game live can follow updates via @LondonBroncosRL.