Doncaster RLFC coach reveals most pleasing aspect of victory over Workington

“The thing which most pleased me was our response to the defeat against Hunslet and the quality of our defence,” said head coach Richard Horne reflecting on the 20-10 win over the Cumbrians.

“I thought defensively we were outstanding and I thought everything we’d talked about doing we did really well.

“If we defend like we did against Workington then there won’t be many teams who will defeat us.

“We were just a bit sloppy at times with ball in hand and there were a couple of forward passes and turnovers which hurt us when we were on the attack.”

Despite wet and windy conditions, the Dons looked to move the ball.

“We wanted to play more of an expansive game than we played against Hunslet, where we found ourselves in a bit of a slug-fest, because we’ve got good strike power out wide,” he said.

“We wanted to get one-on-one with them and we did that at times and created some good ruck tempo which got us on the front foot.”

With the Dons seeing their 12-point lead halved just before half time, Horne admitted to the importance of the next score.

It came in the form of a 90m interception by stand-in half-back Kieran Cross during a period when his charges were a man down.

“It was an all or nothing decision; he had no option but to go for the interception,” said Horne.

“He’s quick so once he got a head start I thought he’d probably have the pace to go all the way, which he did, and that took the game away from them a little at 18-6.

“They got it back to 18-10 but overall I don’t think they particularly troubled us with the ball apart from when they were close to the line where, because they were very big up front and hooker Sean Penkywicz is very clever around the ruck, they were always a threat.”

Dual-registered second-rower Danny Langtree was named man-of-the-match but it was recent signing Matty Chrimes who Horne singled out.

“He did a lot of work which probably went unrecognised by a lot of people,” he said.