Dons 'not clinical enough' in defeat to Halifax Panthers

“There’s a fine margin between victory and defeat in this league,” said head coach Richard Horne. ”We could have won all three and had we done so we’d probably still be looking at challenging for a play-off spot.

“We want to finish the season strongly and to finish as high as we can and if we can pick up a win then I’m confident we could go on a bit of a run in our last five games.

“I thought they were the better side in the first half and I thought we were better in the second,” said Horne who admits he would have settled for a draw after his charges had trailed throughout until the last five minutes when they drew level at 16-all with the conversion to come.”

He added: “I thought that we created a couple more chances than they did but they were a bit more clinical. They probably only had four or five opportunities to score in the game and they took three of them.”

“I spoke to the players after the game about the need to be clinical at this level. We just aren’t finding that last (try-scoring) pass, as well as not getting the bounce of the ball, at times.

“Fingers crossed that will come good between now and the end of the season. The boys are working hard but we need our halves to be better: I think that’s there for everyone to see.

“We asked our halves to get their hands on the ball (to control the game) but they didn’t do that enough in the first half. It was five drives and a kick and we weren’t asking enough questions of their defence.

“We weren’t great coming out of yardage, either, and we made too many handling errors which gifted them field position. It’s criminal and it’s something we often speak about during the week. It’s not a team thing: it’s an individual mistake.

“We had to do a lot of work (defending) when Brad Knowles was sin-binned midway through the first half. Although we didn’t concede any points during that period, and we managed it really well, it does take energy out of the players and it does have an effect during the game.”

The Dons welcomed back hooker Greg Burns after over a month on the sidelines with a hamstring injury and Horne was pleased with his contribution.

“He was great again,” he said. “He gives us that control and structure and we’ve missed him. He will only get better with more games.”

Horne said that stand-off Ben Johnston is on the verge of a return to action after being sidelined with a foot ligament problem since the defeat at Bradford in late June.

“He’s had a couple of setbacks – he possibly tried to come back too early and it flared up again so we’ve had to let it settle down - but he’s now back in training. Ben gives us different options at half-back when we he plays.”