CONCERNED Sedgley Tigers coach Geoff Roberts believes ill-discipline is threatening to derail his side’s promotion bid.

Despite leading 8-6 at half time, the Park Lane outfit crashed to their second successive defeat 23-13 at home to third-placed Chester on Saturday, in a match which saw youngster Brendan Berry sin binned.

The result sees the Tigers slip to fifth place in National League Two North, 11 points behind joint leaders Ampthill and Hull Ionians.

Berry’s yellow card follows Rhys Davies’ offence against Hull Ionians last week and suspensions issued to both Liam West and Billy Emerson for dangerous play against Preston Grasshoppers a fortnight ago.

“Every match at the moment we seem to have an issue with discipline,” said Roberts.

“It’s becoming a problem and we’ve got to address it, otherwise we will be out of contention for promotion.

“All the sides around us won this weekend so we’ve lost ground at the top.

“The league is a little more open than last year but you cannot afford to lose games that you should win, and I do feel this was a game we could have won,” he said.

The Tigers started well and eased into a 8-0 lead following Ryan Parkinson’s try on two minutes and the conversion from Steve Collins.

However, tactically astute Chester fought back to within two points at the break with two penalties in four minutes from William Goodwin.

Callum McShane’s unconverted try extended the Tigers’ slender advantage to 13-6 early in the second period, before substitute Berry – on for injured hooker David Blackwell – was sin binned and the game turned in Chester’s favour.

A try and conversion from Goodwin and further efforts from John Ketland and David Ford condemned the Tigers to only their third defeat of the season.

“At half time everything was looking good but then we lost Blackwell to a hand injury and young substitute Berry got yellow carded. It was a downward spiral after that.

“We didn’t play very well in the second half and seemed to lose our way a bit after the yellow card. From then on, it was never going to be our day,” he said.

With the mid-table league positions looking tight, the Tigers face a trip to Harrogate on Saturday – who are just one point and one place behind the Park Lane outfit – and Roberts knows his side must find their winning form to stay in promotion contention.

“It will be a tough game but we’ve got to find that winning formula to get us back on track again.” he said.