The Dallas Harlequins were happy to secure a victory this past weekend, defeating Fort Worth 44-17, but they still have a long way to go, says prop Sam Rooke.

Rooke nabbed two tries on the day. “I don’t know how that happened,” he joked. And he said the players are encouraged by what they saw. But they need to be better.

“I think it’s a bit of a transition for the players to realize we’re in DI, and there’s no Super League, and that every team in Texas DI is a good team,” said Rooke. “We can’t just show up and win. We expect to compete, but we have to work at it.”

Fort Worth did push the ‘Quins a bit, but Rooke said his club was just happy to win a game.

“We still have a pretty new team,” he said. “We need to develop our depth and we need to do the basics well. When we lost against the Austin Huns, the Huns played well but also our execution of the basics was very poor. We were better against Fort Worth, and I think our defense was better as well.”