THERE will be no pushing of the panic button at Ilkley for Rhys Morgan as they look to bounce back from their first defeat in four games this weekend.

The Stacks Field side entertain eighth-placed Rossendale on Saturday, looking to recover from a 24-17 losing bonus point defeat at third-from-bottom Vale of Lune.

It ended a fine North Premier run of five wins from six games over the new year period, but Ilkley head of rugby remains confident his side can return to winning ways.

The Dalesmen will be boosted by the returns of Max McKay and Luke Pearson against Rossendale after they both missed last week's defeat. JH Johnson is expected to be released back into the Ilkley pack, after he moved in from the wing to number eight at Lancaster side Vale of Lune.

Head of rugby Morgan said: "I'm nowhere near pressing the panic button after after last week's defeat. That does not come into the equation. We need to train hard and get the play back up and running.

"We have had a good run since the Wirral game and played some fantastic rugby.

"I was a bit disappointed we lost against Vale of Lune after such a good run. Nothing went right for us, one thing after another went against us. We did not start right on the training session on the Thursday night before and it carried on into the game.

"Vale of Lune played on our strengths. Decisions went against us. It was just disappointing. We got it back to 17-17 and had enough opportunities to get home with the win.

"We were sixth, I'm more than happy with that. If you had told me earlier in the season that we would be sixth at this stage of the season I would have bitten your hand off. I'm over the moon where we are.

"We have turned losses into wins at the start of the season. We lost to Rossendale earlier in the season, so we will look to put that right.

"Rossendale are a big, aggressive team, we will have to meet them toe to toe. We let them draw us backwards when we were attacking against them earlier in the season.

"We have to front up on Saturday and play to our strengths.

"We have a good mindset for Saturday. Our downfall against Vale was that some of the boys' focus was already on the Rossendale game and not on the game in between.

"The boys carried knocks should have shaken them off by Saturday's game."