Doncaster RLFC look to bounce back against league leaders Halifax

Both Doncaster RLFC and league leaders Halifax will be looking to bounce back from successive defeats in their Betfred Championship clash at The Shay on Sunday (3pm).

The home side, who won their first seven games prior to suffering a narrow derby defeat at home to Bradford Bulls, lost 32-0 against Toulouse Olympique on Saturday evening.

“I know they got well beaten at Toulouse, which is a tough place to go at the best of times, but they are top of the league for a reason,” said head coach Richard Horne.

“They are a very good team with a lot of good players and they are very well drilled so we know we’ll have to play well and get our tactics right to beat them.

“We went into our shell at times against Barrow and played too much one-out rugby and that’s not going to work against a side like Halifax, who have the second best defensive record in the league this season. We are going to have to throw some shape at them and drop some passes and find some angles.”

The game represents the club’s third consecutive fixture against top four sides but Horne says they are up for the challenge.

“Although we lost against a very good Oldham side on Sunday, the way that we finished the game in the last quarter will give us confidence going into the Halifax game because it was close and could have gone either way,” he said. “Having said that it seems that we are taking one step forward and two back and we keep having to repeat things to the players that we shouldn’t have to do.

“As coaches we want to move forward but we are having to go over things again; we don’t seem to be learning the lessons we need to take in and we are doing it the tough way as a result.”

The Oldham game saw the saw the return of star second-rower Pauli Pauli after a knee operation.

“We knew he was undercooked because he’d only trained with us once but we thought that he might give us something,” said Horne. “He went okay though he started to feel a bit tired so we brought him off. He’ll be better for the game on Sunday.”

Another player returning from injury against Oldham was hooker Isaac Misky, who was only promoted from 18th man after Jordan Baldwinson was injured in the warm-up.