O/T

Leigh 68 Sheffield 6



London 16 York 16 ... cracking effort by the Skolars.

I have to say a much improved performance on last week, but ultimately it was our mistakes (and some over zealous penalties for not playing the ball), that cost us in the end.

Interesting too it tool 77 minutes before Jamie Bovill made break.

My first competitive of the season, and I enjoyed it.
I agree we contributed to our downfall with the soft penalties we conceeded, but i think the injuries we suffered before and during the match we a bigger factor in the match. Fawcett, Crawley, Leaf and Butterfield to name four.
This meant Sanderson played the whole game at scrum half,
The biggest distruption for me was the injury to Leaf, which meant Emitt, Carbutt and Ely all had to have a spell at centre, which ulitmately cost us 2 soft tries down our right side

Plenty of decent performances from Dons players - Scott had a good game offloading well, China (apart from those 2 mistakes), the pack worked really hard, And Williams did well when he came on in the main.

Londons result today shows the result last week wasnt that bad.

If the injuries clear up, we look like going it the proper season in decent shape.

The Fawcett injury is the most worrying, speaking to his dad after the game, he didn't really seem to know how long he is likely to be out for.

Think we need to hit the loan market for half back then

Well, either that, or a hooker...



A torn quad is normally pretty nasty.

How did he do that, in the warm up? he was named in the 17 orginally wasnt he?

Regarding the team wilson started on the wing & williams was on the bench.

What about the disllowed try , ref said their player grounded the ball , clearly a knock on & we went on to touch down .Thought we came back into the game well after the disruption of injuries to Leaf & butterfield .

SKY Sports had it the other way round. Couldn't work out from their line-up who was supposed to be playing where either.



Hence my comments earlier in the thread.

Overall an encouraging game. A few mistakes and cheap penalties, 2 of which led to rams tries and 2 when we were in their 20. I didn't realise in the game that we had picked up that many injuries. Hopefully butterfield will be ok as he was having another solid game. I thought the ref was being a bit picky and as for the knock on over the line where Williams touched down that proved to be a game changer. At 24 all we could have gone on and won. Anyway, came away reasonably pleased, well done lads, coyd.

Thought we came out of the blocks today quickly and impressively...

Could easily have been 18 - nil up within 15 mins...

The ref in the first half was as good as we have had but 2nd half he just killed the game in places - I will be amazed if we see one further penalty for play the ball in the remaining season

....

That said injuries didn't help...

Some daft penalties, we must learn that laying on, reefing and pulling feet when standing up will always be penalised...

I also need to applaud Butterfield who I was critical of pre-season, but is turning into a real asset...

Overall a far better game than last week and in theory against much stiffer comp....Dewsbury will have to step up a level in that league....

A good day out COYD

It's a debating point ... on the one hand let's say what a prick the ref was with his 'you didn't play the ball right' ... 'you lifted his leg' .. pretty much trivial e that most refs would have allowed. And at the time, being angry that's how I felt.
On the other hand ... let's say the ref was right in his picky decisions and the Dons were to blame.
Right, let's give the ref the benefit of the doubt, since as far as I'm concerned he doesn't give a sh*t who wins .. he's neutral.

Now given the latter is most probably the case ... I would urge Miller to address three things at his next training session.
Tell his players to:-
One ... stop fiddling about in the tackle.
Two ... put your foot on the ball as you play it.
Three ... watch a video of Brambani's kicking game.

If that training session had come prior to this game ... I am pretty sure the Dons would have won.

Williams scored a perfectly good try and Leatherbarrow should have electric prods attached to his bolloxs until he admits he was just guessing ... which he was!

Let's move on ... (we lost a game would could and perhaps should have won) ... If we get our injured lads back coupled with Dobek and Edwards, then surely we will take some beating in our division.

Forget tales of woe against Thatto ... we will marmalise Thatto, we are just too good. The side that lost against Siddal was dreadful, that's history and irrelevant.

We need to compete against Rochdale next week irrespective of whether it's a dead rubber or not ... because if we can go there and run them close or beat them, we will know we are in with a shout in this league.
COYD

Yep. Some of the angles he was hitting the line at were excellent, he isn't the quickest fullback in the division, but he is a very elusive runner, and will get tries that way.

The only real stand out for Dewsbury was Dom Brambani, he's a cracking player at scrum half, and will win a lot of games against better opposition on his own this season.

An encouraging performance for me, but for a few key moments we could of snatched it. Was a shame that after some periods of excellent line defence we then let them through for a couple of soft tries but on the whole we looked solid under some periods of pressure.

Chris Spurr had a blinding first half for me

I went to the game expecting a substantial gulf between the two sides, and left feeling disappointed that we did not get more out of it.
Some daft penalties given away and the odd dodgy refs call made a lot of difference, but i think we can hold our heads high and look forward to the league season.
Another good effort from everyone concerned.
When you look back at where we were at this time last year it makes you think.

I also went yesterday expecting a cricket score against us and happily came away gutted knowing we could have had and deserved more from the game.

Totally different team from last week, we moved the ball around better. Our line diffence was also very good again except for to two tries from tied marker play.

Think if Wilson had scored in the corner to make it 18 nil we would be talking about a very different outcome.

Well done to all players and coaches.

Roll on the proper season.
COYD.

Did anyone get a good look at why Bovill was put on report?

I know the ref signalled trip but if no touchie comes on, no players appeall, no crowd noise then the only man who sees it hasn't got the bo11oxs the show a red card which it poor it say the least.

Yes.

Buchanan was running into the tackle, and Bovill was attempting to step across, to make the tackle. Buchanan changed direction and caught the leg of Bovill, who was trying to move back towards his opponent. In my opinion, it was accidental contact, because Buchanan just seemed to shrug it off, as well as the rest of his team mates.

The lesson from this game ... where the two teams were evenly matched ...was that the Dons lost because of the penalties they gave away.

Discipline, technique and concentration let the Dons down.
These can and should be addressed ... everything else looks good.

great game yesterday why more people dont come to watch beats me . butterfield getting better every week and williams impressed me when he came on looks like we should have a good season on that performance even with the injurys .

The crowd was 555.
Not brilliant, but moving in the right direction.

Keep playing like that and you should have a few more through the gate. Personally I enjoyed the game yesterday, (OK I'm a Rams supporter) but it was quite evenly matched. Based on that showing you should be in for a good season, as I'm not sure if we didn't play to our full potential or maybe we weren't allowed to?

BTW reasonable admission price for a football ground

Well done Doncaster.

I didn't think it was a bad turn out on a cold day for what in effect was a glorified pre season game. We just need to get the message across in the local media that good things are happening at the Dons, and that there is more to sporting life in Donny than the Rovers.

Good report IMO from a Dewsbury fan.

Ossy, on 21 February 2011 - 09:47 AM, said:
DONCASTER 18 DEWSBURY RAMS 30.

Given the impressive defensive display we saw from the Rams last week, the supporters were expecting more than the rather inept opening we saw from them down at Doncaster today. In those early moments the home side seemed to be breaking the Rams defensive line almost at will, so much so that it was no great surprise when Paul Hughes scored the opening try for the home side after only five minutes, Scott Spaven adding the conversion.

Even now the Rams continued to struggle and only a superb tackle in the corner from Michael Wainwright stopped them adding to their lead a couple of minutes later. It was to prove a temporary reprieve however, for a couple of minutes later Craig Robinson barrelled over for Donny’s second try, Spaven’s conversion extending their lead to 12 – 0.

Up to this point Doncaster had pretty much dominated matters, but now the Rams seemed to get more possession and began to fight their way back into the game. Though it took them another ten minutes or so to register their first score, it was a purple patch which went a long way towards securing their second win of the new season.

Having been awarded a penalty in the shadow of the Doncaster posts the Rams decided to run it, prop Anthony England driving over for their first try and Dominic Brambani adding the conversion.

From the restart a powerful run out of defence from Keegan Hirst set off a superb attack down the left hand side of the pitch, a move that resulted in centre Scott Turner crossing for the Rams second try in as many minutes. Two minutes later they were in the lead, Brambani cutting through a static defence to score to the left of the posts before adding the conversion.

Suddenly the game had been turned on its head and the Rams were playing with more confidence though the score remained at 12 – 18 until the half time whistle. The main topic of interest among their supporters was the appearance of new signing Jordan Tansey around the half hour mark.

The second half opened with more Rams pressure, Luke Blake seizing on a loose ball to slide over the line from close range with Brambani adding the extras again. A few minutes later, a searing run from Tansey almost saw him on the scoreboard, but the defence held him at the last.

The early moments of this second half saw Doncaster suffer from a series of injuries, though that didn’t stop them fighting back with a try from Adam Scott and another Spaven conversion around the hour mark.

Rams certainly weren’t having things all their own way. Play was switching from end to end though once more they managed to conjure up a try just at the right moment. This time it was young loose forward Josh Tonks who collected a high kick to plunge over by the posts for his second try in two weeks. Brambani’s conversion stretched their score to 30 – 18 and that was all we got on the day.

The game degenerated somewhat over that last quarter with both sides making too many mistakes for either coach to be totally satisfied with their charges, but then it’s still a little early to be making any final decisions about the coming season. Next week's game at home to the Border Raiders should tell us more as well as deciding our progress, (or lack of it)in this season's Northern Rail Cup competition. A draw will be enough to see us move on into the next stage, but against Barrow that will be no easy task.

Final Score :- DONCASTER 18 DEWSBURY RAMS 30

Dewsbury Rams :- 1. James Craven; 5. Austin Buchanan; 13. Ayden Faal; 4. Scott Turner; 2. Michael Wainwright; 7. Dominic Brambani; 25. Tom Wandless; 8. Anthony England; 9. Luke Blake; 10. Keegan Hirst; 11. Rob Spicer; 12. James Lockwood; 15. Josh Tonks.
Subs :- 16. Adam Hayes; 18. Shaun Emblem; 23. Luke Menzies; Jordan Tansey.

Doncaster :- 21. Paul Hughes; 17. Adam Scott; 2. Stewart Sanderson; 18. Ashley Williams; 15. Craig Robinson; 16. Mike Emmett; 19. Scott Spaven; 5. Dean Colton; 1. Michael Butterfield; 8. Matt Carbutt; 25. Chris Spurr; 4. Shaun Leaf; 20. Jamie Bovill.
Subs :- 9. Kyle Keswick; 10. Liam Crawley; 13. Jack Ely; 14. Scott Wilson.

Referee :- Mr. C. Leatherbarrow.

Attendance :- 555

Good honest review of the match