Oldham have lost at home to Keighley 32-6, lost 34-18 at Rochdale, drawn 22-22 at Hunslet as well as having wins against Cornwall and West Wales.

Nothing's ever clear cut but should we not beat Oldham, it would further confirm Keighley are better than us and it would suggest Rochdale may be better than us too. We might get a clue as to where we stand in relation to Hunslet as there's probably not much between Oldham and Hunslet.

It'll be interesting to see the Dons' squad for Sunday.

Initial squads for the match. There you go DM https://www.doncasterrugbyleague.co.uk/ ... review/665

Initial squads for the match. There you go DM https://www.doncasterrugbyleague.co.uk/ ... review/665

Thanks Wilf!

I see Ryan Wright is in the Oldham squad. They've got a player called Bradley Jinks...

I wonder if he's got a decent side-step?

Let's hope the Wakefield lads add something extra and help us to a decent win.

Well glad we took the win, but in all honesty I think we can consider ourselves fortunate.
Oldham looked fitter, faster, more imaginative and if they had been a little more patient should have posted more points.
On the other hand we looked predictable, pedestrian and lacking imagination lot of the time.

An entertaining match with the outcome in the balance up until the final hooter.

Not sure how we won, Oldham looked better structured & better coached.

Donny still give the appearance of a group that have only recently met. I guess there are injuries (although some news on this front from the club wouldn’t go amiss) and on/off loan arrangements don’t contribute to a cohesive set up.

Anyway, as the cliché goes, a win is a win. Onwards to the next challenge in the form of North Wales next week.

A battling win against two relatively evenly matched teams.

We made Oldham work the ball out from their own goal line a lot. Had we not done that, I think they could have got the upper hand as they seemed to have more flair when stringing moves together in attack.

Full credit to the boys for sticking at it.

Hard earned win , pleased for Corion & Halliday both had their best games to date. Cockayne gave us a little bit extra when he came on.

The try Corion got in the last game seems to have given him some confidence. He looked good driving the ball out. Tom is a handful with his pace. Ben Cockayne is an astute player. He reads the game well and make the right decisions.

The Dons answered DM's question...
About as good as Oldham and Hunslet, but probably not on their patches....
We will see a big difference against NWC I suspect....
We seem to be existing on individual pride and effort, which is good, but we are not a top team.
Nowhere near enough slickness...
Not enough time spent on good training.
A very, very part time set up...not their fault.

It looks as though the league is split into four groups:

Group 1: Keighley, N Wales, Swinton and Rochdale
Group 2: Dons, Hunslet and Oldham
Group 3: Midlands
Group 4: Cornwall, West Wales and London

The Group 4 teams will probably only get points when they play each other. Cornwall may improve as the season goes on and spring a surprise somewhere.

Midlands aren't a bad side and may win an occasional game against those in the higher groups. Their only two wins to date have been against Cornwall and London.

The challenge for the Group 2 teams, if they want to finish in the top four, is to show they can compete and beat the Group 1 clubs. None of the three have so far taken points off the top four.

The Dons' results suggest we're presently some way below Keighley and Swinton. The N Wales game will tell us where we stand in relation to them. A good result may imply we're improving which could give further hope of a move up the table. A loss will support the view the top four are the main promotion candidates with the rest having work to do to catch them.

After next Sunday, we'll have played 5 homes games and 2 away. I would suggest that if we're going to make the top four, we've got to win at least two of our three home games against Keighley, North Wales and Rochdale.

Our next matches are: N Wales (H); London (A); Rochdale (A) and Hunslet (H).

No disrespect to London but we should win that one. The other three games should be good competitive matches that will tell us a lot.

Following on from that it gets tougher still, we've got N Wales (A) and Swinton (A).

Four out of our next six games are against Group 1 teams, three of which are away. With that in mind, we can't really afford to lose next weekend at home to N Wales.

Interesting...

Thanks for that Mike...the sort of analysis based on results that I like and the sort of observations that infuriate the Facebook Dons sycophants.
One question to ask is ....'has Doncaster pulled off a surprise in any match this season?'
Not just league games, the full total.
And the answer is NO!
Steady and predictable....
Could we see them going to NWC and putting 68 by them like last year?
They have gone backwards....but are improving with playing together.
But they are a mishmash of cobbled players with loanees coming here coming there...
Oldham are similar from what I have read and I can't see either magically getting good enough to challenge for top spot which should always be the goal....play off success is what losers aim for.