Richard Horne reacts to Doncaster's much-needed win at Swinton

“It was probably one of those games where you are proud of the players’ efforts,” said head coach Richard Horne.

“When you go down to 11 men for ten minutes in the first quarter due to having players sin-binned, you are probably looking at conceding three tries. So, to only concede one and keep them scoreless for the rest of the half apart from a late penalty was pleasing.”

Despite trailing 8-0 at the break Horne said he felt confident that the Dons could turn things around in the second.

“We were desperate for the points and I didn’t want them being more desperate on the night and I don’t think they were,” he said. “It was all about getting the two points on the night; it didn’t need to be a great performance as long as we got the win.

“We came into the game on the back of two big losses (against two good teams) and the boys have been really down but the win has lifted their spirits.”

After creating little in attack close to the line in the first half, the Dons played a more expansive game in the second and scored three tries without reply.

“We spoke about doing things a bit differently at half time,” said Horne. “We moved the ball about a bit more though I wanted the players to make easy passes. I didn’t want them trying to throw any spectacular passes. I think we only made one error in the second half and that went a long way to us getting the result.

“We knew that we wouldn’t have the same aggressive (defensive) line speed to contend with and the likes of Paull Pauli was able to make good metres in the middle and Reece (Lyne) and Jason Tali were both strong in the centres. We also put quality last tackle plays on.”

Horne felt the momentum changed following the Dons first try which cut the deficit to just two points.

“You could see the flip in the energy battle as the second half progressed,” he claimed. “I thought we dominated territorially and they didn’t really threaten a try until they had a couple of sets close to our line in the last ten minutes.

“We knew that our first half defensive efforts would probably catch up with us at some stage, but we turned defence into attack and made sure of victory with our third try.”