Dons ‘didn’t throw enough punches’ at newly-crowned champions Keighley

“They’ve not lost a game and they’ve been the best team in the league all season,” said Horne, after seeing his side crash to a 48-18 defeat.

“They were very clinical and their big players came out and performed and they played well as a team.

“I just didn’t think that we threw enough at them when we had our opportunities and were just hanging in there. You’ve got to throw some punches if you hope to win any fight and we didn’t do that which was disappointing.

“I thought both our half-backs were off today. Watson (Boas) was nowhere near his best and Connor (Robinson) was a little bit non-existent.

“That was a little bit disappointing because I thought he had been building towards the back end of the season so to see him not get his hands on the ball as much as we wanted, and when he did make some poor decisions with it, didn’t help the cause.

“Centre Jason Tali didn’t really get into the game, either.

“We spoke throughout the first half, and at half time, about the fact that we were finishing our sets poorly and not putting them under pressure.

“Ironically, we made a good start and it was against the run of play when they went 12-0 up. Even though we weren’t playing well I still felt that we were in the game if we could cut out some of the unforced errors. But the try on half time left us trailing 24-0 and obviously that left us with a lot to do in the second.

“Had we come in 18-0 down we might have had a chance but at 24-0 it looked like the game was getting away from us.

“I thought we started the second half well again but despite opening our account there were some poor decisions. When you are playing the top teams, as we were today, and will be in the forthcoming play-offs, they really hurt you whereas you can often get away with those sort of mistakes against the lower teams.”

Horne said that half-back Ben Johnston, who was a close call on Sunday, could return in Friday’s game against sixth-placed Hunslet Hawks at the South Leeds Stadium. He will check on centre Robbie Storey, who limped off with an ankle injury in the second half, in training.