WHEN asked if he would have taken three points from Ilkley's last two North Premier matches – a trip to fifth-placed Wirral and a home match against leaders Preston Grasshoppers – head of rugby Rhys Morgan admitted: "Maybe I would".

But there remains a feeling that the past two weekends, which have brought an 18-15 defeat on Merseyside and a 29-24 setback against Hoppers at Stacks Field could have been so much better.

A last-ditch penalty goal robbed 14-man Ilkley of a draw at Wirral, and they could not hold onto a 17-5 half-time lead and a 24-15 advantage in the second half against Hoppers.

However, Morgan is more of a glass half-full person and, ahead of Ilkley's trip to Hull on Saturday, he said: "There are loads of positives to come out of the past two weeks.

"We had loads of chances to win at Wirral but lost it to the last kick of the match.

"However, we played some really good rugby and are still developing as a team."

Morgan said of the Preston game: "We deserved to beat them, but we were unlucky with Ollie Holtham's yellow card – Preston should have had a man sin-binned – and I didn't agree with Luke Freer's at the end of the match either.

"But I am not here to moan about the referee and it is up to us ultimately to win matches.

"We know that playing it safe won't win things for us.

"We have to be brave and throw out a 60-40 pass because if it comes off two times out of four then it will be worth it."

Ilkley scored tries through Josh Hall, Max McKay, Jack Maplesden and Ben Magee to earn a four-try bonus point against Hoppers, as well as earning a losing bonus point, and Morgan said: "We played some exciting rugby.

"Josh is only just getting over an ankle injury and is getting his fitness back, while Max made one line break, and it would have been interesting to see what the make-up of our back row would have been at Hull this weekend if Max had been available as JH Johnson is back for us.

"Jack has that physical strength at scrum half, while Ben is a fantastic player but in order to improve that bit extra he needs to work out when to pass the ball and when to take a man on, but pretty much all of our mistakes are coming because we are trying too hard."

Morgan added: "Hull will be difficult opponents and they brought some big players off the bench to win the corresponding match last season, but if we play like we did last Saturday then we can win there."