Blackburn Hawks 4 Whitley Warriors 8

WHITLEY Warriors were late turning up...pity for Hawks that they bothered to show at all.

It was "ice" on the roads out of the north east that delayed the in-form Warriors, but when they finally got their feet on the Arena rink they put the skids under the Hawks.

A game put back some 40 minutes never got going at all for the home side despite a dream start and a goal from new Swedish import Johnny Leijding.

These are sad and sorry days for the Hawks.

Defeat is following defeat and hopes that they could sustain a challenge near the top of the Northern Premier League now lie in tatters.

Manager Mike Cockayne, furious by a double reverse the previous weekend, described much of last night's effort as "dire." He wasn't wrong.

The spark evident in the early season has evaporated and visiting teams are consistently looking stronger and sharper.

That said, it is worth noting that the Warriors are the division's current team to beat...only a few days earlier they had put one over runaway leaders Fife Flyers.

Hawks were off to a sound start, Ismo Rokala offering hope with a goal inside three minutes, but it never got going and three replies in nine minutes from the visitors put matters beyond reasonable doubt as early as the end of period one.

Warriors consistently lost players to the sin bin, but even with a man advantage there was no sign of a revival.

Leijding marked his first home appearance with a neatly-taken effort to make it 2-3, but by the end of period two the score had slipped again, this time at 3-6. Hawks were second best again in the final period when the spirit all but vanished completely and the fans started to voice their displeasure.

It takes a shabby show to provoke the Hawks fans into boos and jeers, but they were quite justified in having a go.

Period scores: 1-3, 2-3, 1-2.

Scoresheet: Ismo Rokala 2+2, Johnny Leijding 1+0, Jim Pennycook 1+0, Paul Fleury 0+2, Neil Abel 0+1, Simon Mills 0+1.

"It wasn't good was it?" admitted Mr Cockayne. "We are certainly in a bad trot and it is going to take something special to pull us round. They seemed hungrier than us and we never matched them for work-rate."

A ninth defeat in just 16 matches spells grim reading with Hawks now rooted in the lower reaches of the NPL - so much for the pre-season optimism.

Leijding, who came in for a fair degree of rough treatment, will need to be a super human to pull his new colleagues round and there is a lingering doubt as to whether Scandinavian players really relish the cut-and-thrust of the British game.

To make matters worse for Hawks fans and officials the winning Warriors numbered a certain Mark Stokes in their line-up. Now that really was rubbing it in.

The previous night Hawks beat Billingham Eagles 14-10 in a challenge match.

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