Dons must not divert from gameplan despite morale-boosting win at Salford, says Horne

Although pleased to have got back to winning ways, head coach Richard Horne felt the Dons’ performance ‘a mixed bag’.

Said Horne: “There was some really good stuff, and we scored some very good tries with both wingers showing up well as did Watson Boas who was playing in the centre after playing stand-off and wing in recent games due to injuries. But there were also parts of the game when we went away from the game plan.

“We were great in the first half and stuck to what we had talked about doing - being direct, applying pressure, executing well and defending well and we led 28-6 at the interval. But our performance at times in the second half was nowhere near good enough.

“We were very sloppy at times. We also started going away from the game plan as well as our last tackle options being poor and that all led to our middles (forwards) having to do more work than they should have done.

“So, going forward we need to be better at sticking to what is working for us. It’s as though we’re getting bored with what is working well and think ‘we’ll try something else’. We can probably get away playing like that against teams like Salford but against the better sides we have to be an 80-minute team.

“That said, Salford were a better team than the two previous games we’ve played them at home. I thought that as well as the experience of a couple of former Super League players, they had some young athletic kids who were full of energy.

“They closed the gap in the second half at one stage but I never felt worried. I always felt that we had another gear we could have gone to had we needed to do so and the fact that we didn’t was disappointing because in view of recent results we need to be at our best every week.”

The game saw the return of hooker Greg Burns following a long injury lay-off and Horne was pleased with what he saw.

“His line speed and what he does defensively makes us look solid around the ruck area so it was good to have him back because we look a lot more composed with him out there.”

Horne also gave a run out to new loan signing from Hull KR, Tom Whitehead, in the second half.

With Sunday’s scheduled game at Widnes, which will now be played on Wednesday July 1st, being postponed, the Dons will not be back in action until they travel to Halifax on June 28th by which time Horne hopes to have the likes of leading try-scorer Edene Gebbie and fellow winger Luke Briscoe available for selection, though both centres Brad Hey and Reece Lyne look set to miss out again.