Richard Horne reacts to Dons' comeback win at Dewsbury Rams

But head coach Richard Horne is not getting carried away with his side holding down a place in the top half of the table after the first game of the second half of the 2024 campaign, and knows his side will need to improve to stay there with group of established Championship sides snapping at their heels.

As has been the case for the last month, Horne was disappointed with the Dons’ first half showing and said he couldn’t repeat what he had said to his charges during the break.

But whatever it was it had the desired effect as the visitors overturned a 14-4 deficit in a dominant second half showing with Dewsbury not really threatening their line until the last couple of minutes.

“They moved the ball well at the end and caused us some problems but we scrambled and managed to save the situation and come away with the two points,” said Horne.

“It would have been disappointing had we lost because I thought that we had done enough to win the game. Just.

“You could see that they were desperate and wanted the points and made it hard for us. I don’t know if we came into the game too complacent because of where they are in the table, but I had warned the players all week that they had been in a lot of the games they have lost and would be up for the game.

“They moved the ball well in the first half because they saw we had a big pack and they wanted to move us about a bit and they did it really well. I don’t think their tries were spectacular but they made us work and caused chaos in our defensive line and that led to errors.

“It’s a tight narrow pitch and they know how to play it and it calls for different tactics to when we played them at home. We did a decent job on them that day on their middles and towards the back end of the game we did that but early on I thought their pack was better than ours.

“We’ve got to start games better and be good coming out of yardage and cut out the mistakes. We know we can be dangerous in good ball areas but we need to be there for longer periods than we are - not just the odd occasion.”

Second-rower Pauli Pauli scored the all-important first try after the break and he was also involved in the build-up to full-back Josh Guzdek’s try.

“Josh will always give a solid performance,” said Horne. “I’ve spoken to him how I want him to play and he’s doing it and he’s probably going to hold on to his spot.”

Another man to impress Horne was on-loan back-rower Nathan Wilde.

“He’ll stop with us until Leigh need him,” said Horne. “He’s been outstanding. He doesn’t make errors and does his tackling and he feels he is getting better the more games he plays for us.

“Jason (Tali) had a good first half and as well as scoring a try he was probably one of our best players when it came to carrying the ball hard, but I thought at times that he looked a bit tired.

“He’s played a lot of minutes and contributed highly and at some point we are probably going to say he needs a bit of a rest.”