COACH Leo Epifania was confident that York Wasps could turn their fortunes around, despite admitting his present squad was not good enough for the Northern Ford Premiership.

The Australian watched his side collapse to a second Cumbrian calamity in as many weeks yesterday, losing to a record 66-0 at Barrow following last Sunday's opening day defeat by Whitehaven.

But he said he was optimistic that new blood would soon boost the playing ranks and help kick-start their poor start to the season.

"We are working very hard behind the scenes and hopefully things will come off. I am confident we will turn it round," he told the Evening Press.

"At the moment the players are not up to scratch. They are not up to (Northern Ford Premiership) level.

"We need some injection of new players and that is something that will be happening down the line."

He added: "There are some guys giving 100 per cent but some are not. Some players have let their team-mates down and I won't stand for that week in week out.

"The morale is good but it's disheartening for the good players when they get let down by others.

"I know that half the team has got a lot of fight and that, combined with the fact we are working hard to find another half of a team, is a positive for us."

Captain Peter Edwards, who suffered concussion in last week's defeat, was not risked and also ruled out through injury were player of the year Andy Hutchinson, Shaun Austerfield, Danny Waite and new signing Rob Lee, while Scott Acklam was unavailable. Academy youngsters Danny Brown and Ritchie Hunter were on the bench.

Epifania said: "I know we were injury-ravaged. Some of these guys we had in the squad are young blokes who should not be thrown in in these situations, but we had no choice."

He was unimpressed with referee Mike Dawber, who he felt was inconsistent regarding the laying-on law, but said it was players' mistakes which led to such a big scoreline.

"In the first half the referee caned us," he explained.

"We were slowing their ball down at the tackle and he gave the penalty but they were slowing us down just as much without getting punished.

"Barrow had that much possession that come the second half we did not have any fuel left.

"But we also killed ourselves with mistakes. There were a lot of missed tackles and a lot of turnovers because of mistakes. It's no wonder a team runs riot."

Updated: 12:02 Monday, December 10, 2001