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 gamehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue

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

He looked and sounded frustrated. Defiantly work needed on the penalty count and not getting provoked. Looks like we have been worked out on that score and they need to remedy it.

I dont think it matters whether you have three or five Hull FC players in your team you are not going to win a game giving away 16 penalties and plenty of possession from errors.
There does seem to be an on field discipline problem at the club.
Your club captain should be standing up on the pitch

He's half way there, he's usually getting up.

There is a chain of command ....
Working down
Coaches
Captain
Players

And the blame is in that order too despite the fact that the players are the ones giving away penalties.
If it continues at a high rate.

I would say on average 7 is about tops.

I see that Gary had a nice encounter over on the Fleecebook.
He wrote a War and Peace post and someone dismissed it using one word.

I had major doubts before the season started about our chances of going up this year and after 4 games things arnt going well are they.. we’ve put all our eggs in Hulls basket when it comes to recruitment but then only pick 3 players a game when we could have 5. Does Horne think that RB is better than any other forward that Hull could provide us...

Our discipline is again letting us down. If things don’t improve at what point does Horne start to become under pressure. He just doesn’t seem to be learning.

I'll make clear initially that I'm not suggesting he should be under pressure yet ... but ... to respond to the question posed ... whilst we have a DR agreement with his main employer, I would suggest it would only ever be pressure from potentially disgruntled supporters rather than Club Doncaster.

It does show that there is another player in the running with Whitehaven and yet they were struggling a while back.
They duffed us up penalties or no penalties and all the usual suspects did the damage.
At one stage we thought Worky, Newcastle and the Dons.
There are a few more now in the mix.

We are going to get better as a unit and we have a string of easier games so there should be little worry until the final few games and the play-offs.
We won't finish top I don't think, why would we?
Our team last year was better.