Doncaster RLFC: Richard Horne bemoans early season injuries as Dons struggle to match expectations

Doncaster RLFC head coach Richard Horne will turn his attention to Sunday’s 1895 Cup tie against struggling West Wales Raiders during tonight’s training session at Cantley Park.
Richard HorneRichard Horne
Richard Horne

Sunday’s game is the first of back-to-back cup games and Horne is desperate to see his charges get back to winning ways this weekend after successive Betfred League One defeats.

But he won’t be taking his eye off the ball as far as the league is concerned.

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“The focus, as we said at the start of the season, is the league so we’ve got three weeks to try and sort things out before we go to Skolars,” said Horne.

In addition to preparing for the club’s debut in the new competition, Horne will also reflect on Sunday’s 12-10 defeat by visiting North Wales Crusaders.

“I know everyone will be thinking we should have knocked them off but they are a good team,” he said.

“They have run teams like Hunslet close and they’ll do so again this season. They’ve got a lot of players with Championship experience.

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“You can see by Sunday’s results that a lot of teams are very close and if you don’t turn up on the day you can get beat.

“We aren’t where we wanted to be at this stage of the season, though several results went our way at the weekend, and we’ve got to have the same mentality as last season when we went on a ten-match winning run.

“We’ve had injuries all season and we picked up another on Sunday when losing Richard Owen with an injury which could keep him out for some time.

“I’ve not been able to field the same team back to back and we are lacking some consistency in the squad.”