Doncaster to face Midlands Hurricanes with battle for second spot heating up

With just four games to go Dons boss Richard Horne, whose side are level on points with third-placed Swinton Lions, knows they can’t afford any slip-ups during the run-in.

Last Sunday’s come-from-behind 26-20 win at home to Rochdale Hornets was Doncaster’s seventh straight victory.

They are four points behind second-placed North Wales Crusaders with a game in hand.

“We’ve targeted a top three place," said Horne. “Obviously second would be better than third but for that to happen we need to keep winning and other results to go our way.

“Some of the sides above and around us have to play each other and depending on what happens in those games it could go down to the wire.”

Formerly known as Coventry Bears, Hurricanes almost produced the comeback of the season at home to Oldham last weekend scoring 36 points without reply in a 41-36 defeat after trailing 39-0 on the hour mark.

Several of the Hurricanes squad have connections with the Dons including the Welham brothers and young back Kieron Lawton, son of former Dons captain Craig, who played several trial games prior to the Covid pandemic.

The Dons will make the trip down the M42 in search of a double having beaten their hosts, who are based at Birmingham & Solihull Bees RFC before moving to the city’s revamped Alexander Stadium in 2023, 48-20 on the opening day of the season at the Eco-Power Stadium.

Despite the fact that the Hurricanes’ outside hopes of making the play-offs were dashed by the Oldham defeat, Horne is not underestimating their potential threat.

“They had a good win away at (sixth-placed) Hunslet recently and they’ve got some big physical lads and they’ve got some old heads in there as well,” he said.

“As I’ve said before, we have to be at our best every week because if you don’t turn up on the day you are in danger of getting beat.

“We have to be a lot better on our yardage sets than we were against Rochdale and cut out the cheap penalties we gave away in that game and we’ve addressed those issues in training this week.”