Bury St Edmunds captain, Tom Rock, recognises that his side have to burst into life from the very first whistle, rather than end up playing catch-up in the second half.
Bury suffered their sixth defeat in their last seven outings, in National League Two South, beaten 27-21 at home to Henley Hawks on Saturday to remain just seven points clear of the bottom three.
Gavin Hogg’s men have only won once since mid-November, a 23-20 success at Worthing, and this week they embark on a long journey to Cornwall to take on hosts Redruth, who are currently third in the table.
Rock knows that the Wolfpack need to get out of the blocks quickly, in Saturday’s stern test.
“For the second week running, we gave ourselves too much to do in the second half,” admitted Rock, following the defeat to Henley.
“It’s a lesson that we need to learn. We’ve shown that we have the ability to go out and impose ourselves on sides, from our second-half performances in the last two weeks.
“But we are just not doing that from the off, which is disappointing, because that’s something we did highlight before this latest game.
“There are plenty of things that we have spoken about, and we are working hard behind the scenes to get it right.
“And ultimately, we need to get it right to move forward.
“We can do real damage and be really competitive, and that’s what we have got to focus on,” added Rock.
Trailing 17-0 at half-time, Bury rallied with three second-half tries, including a brace from centre Sam Sterling.
Hogg introduced replacements Harry Anderson-Brown (at scrum-half) and Dave Micklethwaite (at No. 8), and also reshuffled his three-quarter line, with Rock himself moving from centre to fly-half.
“We mixed it up a little bit in the second half,” confirmed Rock.
“We tried something different and injected a bit of life into the team, and I think the replacements made a big difference.
“Sam (Sterling) is a dangerous runner. We need to get him the ball in space, but he was living off scraps in the first half.”
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