Doncaster RLFC chief takes Halifax defeat on the chin

But as usual Horne, who singled out Jason Tali and Luke Briscoe for praise, took the defeat on the chin.

“It was a bit disappointing and we looked a little flat and they just beat us in the fundamentals of the game,” he told the Free Press. “They carried harder and for us the game was lost in the ruck area; they were far too quick and they managed to get players in and slow us down.

“We conceded some tries which we’ve never looked like conceding so far this season which was disappointing but we are going to have these sort of games during the season and it gives both the players and coaching staff something to work on going forward.

“Despite their league position, Halifax are a good team with a lot of good players and they played really well on the day. They had a high completion rate, which we had hoped to given how we’d played against Batley the previous week, but we were down in the 60s.

“We’d spoken about the importance of the first try given their recent results and we felt if we could get on the scoresheet early on they’d be a little bit fragile. They managed to score an early try and that gave them a confidence boost. In contrast we started slowly and never really got into the game. The energy battle was lost.

“They’ve had a lot of injuries which has contributed to their lowly league position going into the game, but they had some players back as well as signing several players on dual-reg which is something we may have to look at given our injury situation. We picked up a couple of knocks today."

He added: “We trailed 12-0 at the break but we played better in the second half had plenty of opportunities to get back into the game.

“Despite conceding a third try just after half-time I thought we could do until they kicked that penalty which left us needing to score four times which seemed unlikely the way we were playing. The communication we needed to break them down just wasn’t there until the last ten minutes.

“Without looking to make excuses we had a bit of disruption in the build-up with (scrum-half) Connor Robinson going down with a virus late in the week so we had to change the halves again with doesn’t help in terms of consistency.

“We can’t dwell on the game and the focus is now on Sunday’s home game against Whitehaven, who are another big side.”