As a precursor of what’s ahead in the next 17 games, this was a major jolt.

From first whistle to final hooter, a lacklustre Hornets were a clear second best to a Batley team of artisans that executed the basics with crisp aplomb.

Lovers of irony will appreciate the role played by Barry Eaton who was, for once, as effective with ball in hand as he was with ball on boot.

Hornets got the scoreboard underway with an early penalty, but sat back and let Barry get on with it. Allowed yards of space to pick and choose his attacking options, Sibson was the first to benefit after just 10 minutes when he followed an Eaton break up the middle of a flapping defence to take a neat pass to score.

Indeed it was Hornets pack’s reluctance to commit to the tackle that allowed Batley to chuck the ball around with ease. More flapping and shrugging on 20 minutes found Sean Richardson steaming through a hole you could park a cruise liner in. Eaton predictable with the boot. 12-2.

Hornets were struggling to find any cohesion with what little ball they had. Despite spending significant tracts of time camped impotently in the Batley 20m zone - and forcing three drop-outs - their only real threat of the first half came when Gareth Price crashed through tacklers to score.

Batley responded quickly. An aimless hoof in the air dropped by Williams under no pressure; the ball moved left and right in quick succession and Maun crashing through a weak Williams tackle to, score wide out on the last tackle.

Barry missed the conversion. Shock, horror! 16-6 at half time.

Playing uphill in the second half, it was imperative that Hornets tightened up on defence. After six minutes, it was clear that this hadn’t really sunk in. Leek simply ran through the defence, popped up a tidy pass to Maun arriving at speed; he swatted off the attention of two defenders to score.

Cue the collapse - two Sibson tries in 4 minutes killing the game stone dead. Eaton dinked the grubber; Flynn’s dash enough to take him clear of a static defence, Sibson on hand to score. Then Harrison shaking off weak tackles, Sibson in close attendance - skating round a flailing Platt to score.

With Hornets reduced to one-man drives from the threequarters as the pack evaporated into anonymity, Batley’s front row showed the way forward. First Hill banged his way through to score; then Rourke effectively ran off the bench to find himself on the end of a neat passing sequence to score.

Hornets did summon up one reasonable attack with Pricey again crashing over to score, but the humiliation was complete when Barry Eaton gathered his own slow-motion grubber to touch down unopposed beneath the claret dot.

So where do we go from here?

Despite an Easter Monday of upsets that sees some sides at the wrong end of the table, it’s clear from results that Hornets need some heavy duty under-pinning if we are to support a viable survival challenge.

Whilst there are observations that Hornets lack quality in key areas, there’s no excuse for a pack as big as ours to abdicate responsibility for taking the team forward on attack and getting stuck in on defence. One or two players need to have a very close look at themselves in the mirror this morning - because, with Whitehaven at Spotland next week they’ll only look less capable id they don’t step up to the line.

If we are to look for positives from every game, we need bloody radar to find the ones at Mount Pleasant. New acquisition Liam McGovern struggled to make an impact behind a beaten pack; Paul Anderson strove canute-fashion to shore up our suspect right flank; Tommy Hodgkinson waged a one-man resistance in the pack; Gareth Price bustled his way to two tries. And that’s pretty much it, really.

Always able to laugh in the face of extreme adversity, the Hornets contingent sang “We’ll bring our boots next week...” - but if it’s true that defence wins you games, we’re going to be disappointed most weeks on this performance.

Our only hope is that Bobbie Goulding won’t stand for this for very long.