Richard Horne hails ‘great performance’ as Dons return to winning ways at Batley
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Horne had few complaints as his side climbed above the West Yorkshire side into eighth spot in the Betfred Championship table after posting an impressive 38-0 win to end a run of three narrow defeats.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“It was a great performance from the boys,” he told the Free Press. “Their willingness to defend for each other on our try-line was outstanding.
“I think that they had six back-to-back sets and they threw a lot at us in the first half though I thought we looked comfortable defensively. I don’t think that they stretched us apart from when we found ourselves short of numbers on the short side in the third quarter but the final pass to the winger went into touch.
“We stuck to our systems and we didn’t panic and on the back of that we got some good field position and our half-backs made some smart decisions.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“I don’t know if it was a contributing factor, but Connor and Watson possibly felt they were under a bit of pressure with Ben Johnston being fit again (after two months on the sidelines) and available for selection. But we kept faith with them and I thought they were good today.
“Connor, in particular, stood up to be counted as he knew he had too after the last couple of games where I felt we needed to be managed better by the halves and had we been we could probably have turned defeats into wins.
“We showed just what we can do when we get it right in attack. We are a team which has got some great strike players and whenever we get teams one-on-one there is always a possibility of a score and we did that a lot today.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“We moved the ball about well and we asked questions of their defence when we did that.
“There were areas of the game which we can improve on; we got a little bit sloppy at the end. But, as I said, I’m happy with the performance as we got to jump above a team for the first time in recent weeks as we’ve slipped from sixth to ninth.
“It’s a big achievement for us as a club at this level to keep clean sheets against the same team and we’ll go into the Widnes game on Sunday in a confident mood.”
Hooker Joe Lovodua came off with an ankle injury midway through the second half but Horne is hopeful that the former Hull FC man will be fit to face Widnes.