Doncaster RLFC: Play-off final is 'massive game for the club' - Carl Hall

“It’s not the final that anyone would have predicted at the start of the play-offs but it’s going to be a tough one – not least because they beat us when we played them (at Chester RUFC) towards the back-end of the regular season,” he told the Free Press.

“The coaching staff came to my house on Sunday and we watched their semi-final win over Hunslet. It was a battle but they came out on top.

“We’ve got a lot of time for their player-coach (Carl Forster) and for what they’ve done to reach the final from sixth place after winning three away games against teams which finished above them.

“We had to do something similar a couple of years ago so we know how tough it has been for them to reach the final.

“They’ve got a big pack, and the conditions may favour them if the pitch is heavy following the rain this week. They’ve also got some good backs - we were all impressed by their full-back Owain Abel against Hunslet.

“They will be without winger Rob Masson, which will be a massive blow to them because he always caused us problems in the past, but they are playing well as a team.

“Having been away in the previous two finals we are at home this season and we’ll be looking to make that count and it will feel really gutting if we lose out again. But I’m confident that won’t be the case because we are playing well, we’ve got a strong squad and there is a great team spirit in the camp.

“It’s a massive game for the club in terms of where we want to be going forward. We want to be playing in the Championship again for the first time since 2015 and the added bonus if we do go up is that we could have eight or nine Yorkshire derbies next season as against two this season.

“There is a real buzz about the final and I’ve had lots of people, including former players, getting in touch this week.

“As we are part of Club Doncaster, I’d like to think that some Rovers and Belles supporters will come down and get behind us on Sunday. We are also hoping that some of the supporters who have stopped coming in recent years for whatever reason will also get down to the game.

“It’s not only important that we win, though that is the priority, but we also want to do it in style. We’ve played a lot of entertaining rugby this season and we want to show people, who maybe haven’t seen us, what we can do.”

Although everyone’s focus is on the game during this week’s build-up, the club are ready to spring into action should they be successful.

Said Hall: “We’ve got our in-house plan in place if we do make it and we’ll sit down and discuss it early next week.

“Ourselves, Gavin Baldwin and the directors have all got a vision of what we want to do. What has been holding us back as a club in recent years has been the fact that we’ve been in League One.

“We know what we’d need if we were to get promotion including what sort of players we’d need to bring in and we know how we can achieve that. People might question if we’ve got the money but we’ve never had any problem with our finances. People shouldn’t underestimate what our commercial department bring in.

“Although there is a limited pool of players, we’ve always done alright with those we’ve targeted in the past. We take them down to the training ground and show them around the stadium and both act as big plus points.”