Featherstone Rovers boss James Ford wants his players to show more patience in games

​The Post Office Road men are now within one win of the League Leaders’ Shield after taking their record to 21 wins from 23 Betfred Championship matches in 2023, but their recently installed chief reckons there is still room for improvement.

Despite seeing Featherstone comfortably defeat Keighley Cougars 36-6 Ford saw areas to work on with the big matches to come in the end of season play-offs.

He will also be looking for more improvement in a big game coming up this week when Rovers face a trip to play third-placed Bradford Bulls on Sunday.

“I’m obviously pleased to win and I thought Keighley played pretty well,” said Ford.

"There were some aspects of our performance that were really pleasing. Our 20 trap D was good, our shape was good, our willingness to move the ball was really good.

"Where do I think we need to improve? I think we can a little bit more clinical and/or patient.

"We left far too many points out there for a team that’s getting ready for finals.

"We need to be more clinical, we need to nail them chances. We do that by working really hard at our skill, our game and our decision making.”

Two-try scorer against Keighley Connor Jones explained that the aim under Ford was to keep improving week by week as the team builds towards the play-offs.

He said: “It got a bit scrappy and there’s plenty to work on, but I feel we’re improving slightly every week and it was a good result for us.

"We’ve spoken about improving every week and we wanted to improve from the Sheffield game.

"I still feel there’s more gears in us, which is exciting.

"We’ve got more games until the finals, plenty of time to improve and we’re working really hard to do so.”