'Everyone knows their job' - Horne reacts to Dons' emphatic win over Batley Bulldogs
Tyla Hepi’s Doncaster RLFC teammates gave the popular New Zealand second-rower a 32nd birthday to remember when routing Batley Bulldogs 50-12 in Sunday’s Betfred Championship clash at the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium.
Although Hepi, who has battled his way back to fitness after back-to-back ACL knee operations, didn’t get on the scoresheet as the Dons posted one of their biggest away wins at second tier level, he played his part in what was a real team effort as they ended the first half of the 2025 campaign in style.
Although he was more than happy with the result, head coach Richard Horne told the Free Press that it wasn’t the game he had been expecting.
“It was a strange game because we weren’t completing (our sets) well but we were still posting points,” he said.
“We moved the ball about and we took our chances when they came, which we had spoken about doing during the week, and we scored some great tries.
“Although we didn’t need to do that today, we didn’t really build pressure and that is something we will need to do, as well as being better with our last tackle plays, against the top clubs.”
In contrast to a lot of other games this season, the Dons got off to a flying start and led 18-0 after as many minutes despite electing to play up the infamous slope.
“We had plenty of the ball and I just thought that we played at a high tempo in that first quarter,” said Horne. “We’d spoken in the build-up about how their middles (forwards) can be one of their big strengths but can also be one of the biggest weaknesses if we could turn them over, which we did in the first quarter.
“They came more into it in the second quarter when we failed to turn the ball over on our terms and they proved hard to handle when near our line as they showed when scoring their try. We had to scramble really well on several other occasions.
“But then broke away and scored. We’ve got some great strike players in the side and some boys in the team are in really good form.
“I thought we played well as a team. Our middles set a really good platform for our halves and our backfield not only ran well with the ball but they also helped when bringing the ball out of defence.
“Everyone knows their job and they are all contributing to performances which are giving us wins or running our opponents very close in defeat.”