Lucas is still out but he's not that far off a return.

I would kike to wish all at the Dons the very best of luck going into your first game in the championship,Dewsbury have recruited well,however your spirit and team work carried over from last year will see you come out ontop.

COYD

Bookies predicting a tight game. Bet365, Skybet & Hills give the Dons 2 points start on the Handicap. The others who are quoting go 10/11 each of two (no handicap).

Weigman, Cowling would be in as a winger in my eyes, over Stu hence my Partnership with Lee point.....
SO Butts, Cowling, Waterman, Cunningham , Tuffour would be my start. Trust me after 30 years I know we cannot have 3 centres........assume you would drop Butts?

Now then didnt mean to question your RL knowledge .

MY 17

Waterman

Sanderson
Cunningham
Cowling
Tuffor

Goulding
Fawcett

Cas
Kesik
Waller

Butterfield
Robinson if fit/ C Hughes

Cooke

REPS
Carbutt
Emmett
Welsh
Kaye

18th man
Edwards if fit / C Hughes

Bit controversial I know

Dons 16 Rams 22
The better side won.
The Dons were shiite, they couldn't hold on to a thing.
Couldn't complete a set of six.
Took the wrong option almost every time.
They played like strangers and didn't have the desire of the Rams.
Let's hope things get better.
I am loving the bonus point system.
Thank fook for it, we will need it.
PS Tuffour had a great game.
The man is a diamond.

Can't disagree with Stand-Offish. Thought we were defensively poor again this week. The amount of ball we had in first 20 minutes we should have one up with more.

I can disagree with a usual negative post .
I know eveyone is due to their opinion , before you come back at me .

Didn't get going at all in first half, second half a bit better but i would agree better side on the day won. Can play a lot better , need to get used to increased pace of the game at this level. We'll be ok im sure.

Harsh but fair ,I think S-O.

I agree Rams were better than us, but, on the plus side I thought we defended very well for much of the game.
I think experience told today. We still looked Championship 1 thinking in our attacking play, barring Tuffour's tries. Too slow at the play-the-ball, where I thought the ref was lenient on them however. Far too one-dimensional, not enough running onto the ball. Chase down of our clearing kicks left a lot to be desired. Hopefully, we will learn from the experience.

Positives and negatives for me:

Negatives:
Too many key players underperformed.
Too many bad decisions made
Failed to get up to meet them when defending
Should have been a game we were targeting
There are a lot better teams than that in this division (I assume)

Positives:
We got a point from a bad outing
We can play a lot better
Tuffour was excellent
We, in general, contained a physically big side

could,nt understand the team selection.is butterfield injured.seems tony was trying to accommodate players,and if that was the reason,why not goulding from the kick off.we were very niave on the ball when we did,nt drop it.some poor decisions from the ref did,nt help but im not blaming him(totally).i dont think we were as bad as S/O portraded us,but he,s entitled to his opinion like the rest of us.we can only get better.coyds

i could name about 4 players that actually showed passion! the rest just didnt seem interested. we didnt show up today and that wasnt helped by dodgy decisions and shocking team selection!

Too many errors but ref didn't help at times...just seemed to look like not played together.
Don't want to be harsh on Fawcett but Bobby should be starting choice as he killed ball way to often and Spur should have then gone into centre. Kez needs more time on park as makes diff and emmett looks better as a hooker so soon as Edwards fit the better.
Brett looked like had been told not to pass....
Positives tuffour brooke and carbutt showed promise.
A lot should be learned and well done lee for being only one firing guys up.
Need to meet them attackers at pace but overall defence was good.
Still a points a point.

lee firing the guys up? he was a liability and made too many errors. kesik and cooke were the only 2 i saw encouraging the team. emmett deserved man of match and i would love to see him instead of powley as hooker.

I think Powley might benefit from a spell in an U20's team .

Dewsbury deserved to win , seemed quicker off the mark today. Some postiives today Broughton had his best game to date , Emmett deserved MoM.

Love to know how many sets were completed. Worst display of passing a ball Ive seen in ages with players taking passes round their heads giving Dewsbury time to smash the lads. Dewsbury are far from being the best team but in general kept things simple and never looked like losing.

Dewsbury deserved their win. We were terrible.
We seem to have no idea about going forward, poor in defence, and lacking tactical gile. Who was the leader out on the field?
The only bright spot for me was Tuffour, he had limited chances but when they came he took them Westerman has got to curb his desire to have a go at the officials.

Talking of officials - when is someone going to realise we the paying public deserve a level of competence above that being shown in recent years and todays performance was a disgrace.

waterman? cooke really was always going to struggle to make impact when hes put as loose forward to make room for a dual reg player.missing so much of regular team and putting in dual reg at last minute does nothing for team morale.

Unless mistaken Cooke remained at Stand Off from start to finish?
Bobby I believe went to scrum half and Fawcett replaced Cunningham in centre when went off injured....?

Might be wrong...

PS Emmett was LF throughout?

Powley and Kes rotated Hooker?

spurry went centre. emmett went second row & cooke moved to loose.i think. kes did 55. powley did 25.. is miller not putting any belief in powley?

Stu Sanderson has become the very embodiment of the Dons in the last two seasons.
The man has Dons written through him like a stick of rock.
His enthusiasm and delight in victory is a joy to watch.
I don't know what he must have thought today if he watched the inept performance of a supposed superior player.

The whole mish mash today was as a failure of dual reg players being accommodated at the expense of the team-spirited players that were dropped who were in hindsight doing a better job.
But it was just one game where things went badly wrong and we only lost by six.
I thought we defended really well, but our attack was woeful.
Worryingly woeful.
Yet we were good against Keighley.

We have gone backwards.
These dual reg players need to gel quickly and step up to the plate, otherwise what is the point of them.
I liked the team spirit we already had.

However we will get better, but expect the usual defeat at Barrow first though.
What is that all about?
It must be a mental thing.
Perhaps it's just become a tradition.

PS Why do some people get the hump when someone says the side played badly when it did?
If the side had played well we would be saying that as well wouldn't we, even in defeat?
Are we supposed to act like ostriches and pussy foot about so we don't offend anyone?
Good is good, bad is bad.
Bad is not good ......

COYD

Agree with your comment on Sanderson , his omission was a surprise, but i have still been slightly surprised by the level of criticism placed at the coach and the teams door. Yes they did not play well, they will know that, and we all have a go at picking the team, its part of the build up, but at the end of the day Tony Miller picks a team he thinks can compete, last season he was a god to some, after one game against a side who were already established in the division , and look to have got stronger, he doesn't know what he's doing?. We all knew it was going to be a difficult season, didn't we? The club have said they aiming for mid table, im not so sure about that, anywhere outside the bottom two will be a success.Personally i think we will be ok, its a long season; one game in

Just so there is no confusion.
I personally have nothing but praise for Tony Miller.

Second, I try my hardest nowadays to not mention players by name unless they play well.
Although I did mention Broughton the other day, but he is coming along a bit now.

I say things like the team played badly or well according to actual circumstances.
HTH

Not getting at you personally, you just highlighted the fact about people moaning and team selection, ie: Sanderson, which i agreed with, or particularly anyone who's posted, we are all entitled to an opinion , but at the stadium fans were already turning against the coach and players, some walked out after dewsburys final try. To turn on a team who have just had the most successful season in the Dons history , after one game, i found baffling. But each to their own i guess