Richard Horne bemoans Dons' mistakes in heavy defeat to Sheffield Eagles

“I certainly didn’t,” admitted a clearly disappointed Dons’ boss Richard Horne. “But when you make eleven errors, and give away ten penalties, you are not going to win any game on those stats alone - especially against a very good team like Sheffield who pride themselves on their attack.

“I thought our middles (forwards) were great and our yardage defence was really aggressive and we made them kick from deep. But then errors from our backfield players and spine really hurt us and I thought that was a big part of how the result ended up.

“I didn’t think either of our half-backs were ever in the game and they were making poor decisions when we had the ball. The leadership around the park when we found ourselves in good positions wasn’t where it needed to be and you could see that. It was a bit frustrating for us on the sidelines as for some boys on the field – the two centres hardly saw the ball.

“One of the few positives in the first half was that we came in within touching distance at 18-12 on the back of just over a 50 per cent completion rate having had no good ball. So we felt that we were in with a chance if we could put things right in the second.

“But we came out in the second half and played just like we had played in the first and it just wasn’t good enough today.”

Horne admitted that things could have been different had Pauli Pauli’s touchdown early in the second half stood.

“I thought he was laid on his back and reached out to score but the referee ruled that his elbow was down before he touched the line and ruled a double movement.

“It would have been huge for us had the try stood, but it didn’t happen and we rarely looked like getting back into the game after that and we looked like we were going to concede every time they got into good ball positions.

“Whereas we defended really well when they came out of yardage when they got near our line we looked a completely different team and looked really soft in defence and that came down to errors made by individuals.”