Don't worry, remember the 'Five Year Plan' !!!

I frequesnt both quite regularly and would label myself more pragmatic than optimistic or pessimistic.

Personally I would have taken 2 wins from the first 4 fixtures on paper, not necessarilly expecting the 2 we got the points in but on average. I think that 2 from 4 expectation is the pessimistic tendancy showin through. The optimistic tendancy tells me we this is far fro over, we always lose away at Haven (last season being an exception) so meh to that, I also think it's too early to say which teams are better than which.

I am not overly worried yet but neither am I overly enthused

I'm not worried either.
I just think we are average and really with a division of this quality that is not good.

The fact is we should be in a position given the Hull lads to boss this division and we aren't.

That is down to a weak pack mainly.
And that is down to RH.
Don't rate him as special, never have.

Whoever the coach is problems on the field and indiscipline are down to him, so for a coach to say indiscipline cost us is a cop out and a shifting of responsibility.

It was interesting on the League One podcast from before this weekend the guy from Whitehaven was talking about Doncaster's big mobile pack

With the revised DR deal with Hull, I thought this would be the case too.

Wonder what he thinks after the game.
Never mind anyway, we KNOW they struggle and never forget RB is part of that big mobile pack, and clearly is neither.

I always felt that to show true promotion form we would need 3 wins from the opening 4 league fixtures. Which, to be fair, we could have achieved but for the dreadful performance in the second half against Hunslet. Had that have been a victory, a defeat in Cumbria wouldn't have been the biggest disappointment, although getting beaten by the equivalent of 3 scores after leading at HT does have to beg questions about another poor second half showing resulting in a defeat.

I am concerned but accept there is a fair way to go yet although, there are less games to claw it back this season if we get too far behind.

We're in a results orientated business but I always try to look at how we've played as well as whether we win.

In the Workington game, for example, I felt the result could have gone either way. We got the rub of the green with a couple of our tries. I left the game feeling we were 'competitive' with them but clearly better than them.

In the Hunslet game, they roughed us up and we fell for it, but I'm not confident we can turn that result around when we play them again.

Against Coventry, we looked as though we could get on top but they kept us near our own line too much for my liking.

The Newcastle game was a bizarre one. It's hard to know what to make of it, apart from knowing the lads have a good attitude and never threw in the towel.

Results-wise, two out of four is okay. It looks like quite a lot of teams will be capable of beating each other on the day. But I hoped we'd be the stand-out team in the league with the help we could be getting from Hull.

We've got seven of the 'easier games' coming up over the next few weeks. We shouldn't lose any of those. The three critical games after that could then shape our season against Oldham, Hunslet, and Newcastle. Before then, I suspect our league table position will start to look better but ultimately it's the games against the tougher sides that will determine where we we finish.

The first three could have gone either way, we happened to win two. The newcastle game was a farce and almost impossible to read into; I think we were better than Hunslet on the day but they out scored us which is to their credit; and Workington came down to two long distance efforts, other than that it was a tight affair and almost certainly our best showing so far

Richard Horne's comments after the Whitehaven game:

[urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=187&v=VoI4_nwN0ME[/url

Crap results like that do however affect attendances ....