AFTER shipping 50 points in each of their last two SSE National League One matches, it is not a big surprise that Wharfedale coach Jon Feeley has trouble sleeping at night.

A 53-26 defeat at Coventry was followed by a 52-12 home reverse to Blackheath, who were only a point and a place above the Greens going into the match.

However, Feeley's fitful nocturnal habits are only part of the story as the coach admitted: "I never sleep well at night – even after victories. It is a by-product of being a rugby coach."

After the reverse in the Midlands, Feeley had called for a strong start against the Londoners but they were again found wanting, Blackheath scoring a penalty try in the first minute and added to that eight minutes later with a try, almost inevitably, by flanker Dave Allen from another driving maul.

Feeley admitted: "It was a marginally better display than last week but the two things that we cannot control are an overflowing injury room – I have half a National League One side watching from the stand – and our lack of physicality.

"The driving line-out was a clear area of their dominance, and by the time we had figured out how to stop it over half of the game had gone.

"We had ten minutes of dominance in the second half but where we need to go next is to turn that into 80 minutes per match."

Sixth-from-bottom Wharfedale's points against column reads 189, which is only better than bottom two Old Albanians (196) and Macclesfield (277).

On a glorious autumnal afternoon, Wharfedale were being pinned back by accurate kicking downhill in the first half, whereas the home side's kicking in the second half was mostly aimless.

By half-time, Wharfedale trailed 33-0, with Tom Davidson having missed a shot at goal in the 23rd minute, and only threatened once with ball in hand in the first half.

No-one tried harder for Wharfedale than their captain James Doherty on his 100th league start for the club, and the longer the match went on the more he seemed to try.

The Greens lost hooker Ian Larkin with a shoulder injury after 19 minutes and his replacement Dan Stockdale after 50 minutes, while teenage back-row brothers Tom and Josh Burridge were sin-binned a minute apart in the second half – surely some kind of record.