Workington Town captain Ollie Wilkes is staying positive despite his team’s strong league form suffering a blip.

Town’s run of League One wins came to an end at Borough Park on Sunday as Oldham ran out 26-16 victors following a stop-start game in front of a bumper crowd.

The game saw Town struggle to cope with the absences of Carl Forber and Danny Tickle as the Roughyeds showed why they are challenging near the top of the league table, with head coach Chris Thorman admitting his side got what they deserved,

Wilkes was similarly honest in his assessment of what had gone wrong for the team as they struggled to put into practise what they had been working on in training.

“There were a few underlying factors,” he said.

“The referee didn’t help but I wouldn’t blame everything on him.

“We had a couple of numbers missing which is something we should be able to manage.

“We were a bit dumb in some aspects of the game, including playing to the whistle, myself included.

“We also made a couple of silly decisions and all of that has ultimately cost us.

“But looking on the positive side of things, I thought our goal line defence was excellent for the majority of the game and that’s something we’ve really improved in recent weeks.

“We are not the finished article right now and we know that.”

Despite the disappointment of Sunday’s result, Wilkes was keen not to be too downbeat about the team’s first league defeat since May 11, with the team having won three league games in a row before the weekend.

Town are set to travel to take on Newcastle Thunder in League 1 action on Sunday with the opportunity to quickly bounce back with a win to keep them in the hunt for a play-offs place.

Wilkes added: “Anyone can beat anyone on the day; we went to Oldham and won, then they came up here and beat us.

“We beat Newcastle twice and now they’re beating everyone.

“Losing can become a habit and it’s one we don’t want to get into but similarly winning can become a habit.

“If we beat the teams below and around us between now and the end of the season we will be there or thereabouts.

“The season’s not over and although we’ve made it a bit more difficult to get to where we want to be, there is still a lot more rugby league to be played yet.”

More than 1,000 supporters packed into Borough Park, the club’s old home, for the game, with the club giving free entry to youngsters who were wearing local sports kits.