Dons 'on the right track' despite defeat to Widnes Vikings

“We were better than in the win against Hunslet last time out and better than the game before that in the 1895 Cup (at Sheffield) as well and considering our punctuated start to the season we are on the right track,” said Plume.

He added: “It was certainly a decent performance against a strong Widnes side in a game that we probably could have won. It certainly could have gone either way and if the ball bounces six inches higher for Edene Gebbie in the last play of the game then he scores.

“There’s always a big negative when you lose, and that’s the result, but there were plenty of positives. One being that we stayed in the contest for the full 80 minutes and were still in the game right at the end.”

The Dons led 12-10 at the break with well-worked tries by winger Bureta Faraimo and Watson Boas, after conceding an early try.

Said Plume: “We spoke at half-time about how we’d been dominant (for long periods) in the first half and the only area where we weren’t dominant was the scoreboard - we were only two points up. We spoke about the need to press home our advantage in the second half.

“We probably didn’t quite do that in the third quarter because they scored a couple of tries - the second of which was unfortunate from our point of view in that that the loose ball when we were attacking in their half ended up in the arms of the fastest man on the pitch.

“It was a gift try to make it 26-16 when Watson lost the ball near our line, but those sort of things happen in games.”

The Dons, who were well served by the likes of Pauli Pauli, skipper Reece Lyne and wingers Faraimo and Luke Briscoe, in particular, stuck with the Boas-Hall half-back pairing.

“They give us some variation in the halves,” said Plume. “Craig is an instinctive player so is Watson to an extent but that also gives us an headache because we don’t know what they are going to do, neither do they. On the plus side, neither do the opposition, and they are hard to defend against at times. They did some good stuff today.

“We weren’t creative enough at the start of the season and the halves were part of that. But we’ve tweaked how we play a little bit which means we may appear to be more creative and score more tries.”