Decent result for Donny & Toulouse at York earlier. Bit of a shock really.

I would sooner Rochdale had won.
One less side above us.

Surely that would inspire Donny even moe to get maximum points from their remaining games ? They have the ability from what I saw on saturday They need to reduce the errors and tighten up a bit that's all.

The positive aspects for the Dons at the moment is that with Jorden Howden and Jason Tali in the team there is some evidence that we're improving as the season has gone on. The downside is that we're very aware of our defensive weaknesses and haven't got a lot of confidence we can contain the better sides in the league.

With York beating Rochdale, it makes it harder for us to finish in the top four in this first round of matches. A Rochdale win would probably have been better for us. Three wins out of our last four games should be enough to get in the top four although Barrow and Keighley could be breathing down our necks. We certainly can't afford to come unstuck away at Skolars.

In reality, this league structure means that it is all about peaking at the right time, and having everyone fit and playing at their best come the end of the season. This needs to be our aim. Promotion isn't beyond us but most of us probably aren't confident we are good enough to beat the better teams, if the better teams play to their potential.

Donny are the best team i've seen at Toulouse this season and that includes the cup game against Leigh. You looked good going forward with a quick line-speed which shocked the French I believe, forcing them to be unsettled. Yep, maybe better discipline and a bit more quality in defence is the answer but I don't honestly think you are far away from being a promotion side, but I can only go by the one performance. You obviously need to keep hold of the players and suffer the minimum of injuries like any other team. Toulouse have a smallish squad in comparison and injuries and suspensions have taken their toll but they have survived through team spirit and hard work. It's not always rocket science.

It's never rocket science.
Toulouse are top of the table for obvious reasons, which are that on average they are fitter and better with better systems of play.
Better systems of play is the route for improvement for Donny in the short term.

Thornton has to take an analytical approach to this, it is NO GOOD taking a move on approach to rugby.
The evidence is all there, why ignore it?

The analysis of tries conceded for instance should include the entire how, where, why, players involved, frequencies .... the lot!!!
Then, you have a better idea of where your strengths and weaknesses lie and you can try to improve.
You can't just play a player who is shipping two or three tries a game and hope for providence, you have to DO something to help him.
Moving players around can often sort things .

Let's take a case in point Foggin-Johnston .....

I like the guy, BUT, if he ain't scoring tries he shouldn't be in the side, because he is rolled over too easily.
So try him in the halves or fullback or bulk him up pronto.
The same notion applies to others as well who can all be developed or dropped.

I could never be a coach who would say trite things like ...'it was a bad day at the office, let's forget it and move on'.
Learn from mistakes and get better.

trouble is if we start playing well and start picking up point . some posters on here would be saying whats the catch,something will go wrong,our bubble will burst.nature of the beast on here im afraid.im surprised we have,nt seen any public wrist slashing before now.played 10,won 7,lost 3.can only mean the end of the world is nigh.go on now lambast me for being an optimist.COYD.

Difficult to disagree with any of that SO but to contemplate dropping Foggin-J for example isn't positive. He had a cracking game against some decent players but I think the coach should give him licence to be more adaptable to get into the game more instead of hugging the touchline for 80 minutes (ok, so I exaggerate but you get the idea ?). He does need to bulk up like so many (Kriouache a few years back at Toulouse and Pelissier at Cats for example) and that needs the coaching staff to sort this out. You can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear but a good coach will get more from his squad. I've no idea if GT is the answer but I feel he should have at least another season to try to get more from his squad and strengthen where possible. Makali did ok saturday but youth has to be allowed to come through..

Can't fault that.

I don't think we would to be honest.
We are being promised Superleague level football unless I am missing something.
You are right that we should wait and see if we do well in the playoffs, but you have got to compare us to Toulouse, Rochdale,
York, Keighley and Barrow.
We have beaten two of them, which is OK.
We are OK ... that's it so far.
Won 7 lost 3 us not very clever in this league though.

It's all right saying that the moaners will say the bubble will burst, it'll all go wrong.
It already has, we are playing in the third tier and not looking good for promotion from that, despite being told that super league was the aim and that we had the best playing budget we'd ever had and to wait for the big name signings the season before, can you really blame fans for not buying into the dream anymore when certain people need to wake up and smell the coffee

I don't class myself as an eternal optimist, neither do I consider myself to be a grim pessimist. I like to think of myself as a realist.

If the club's aim is to get into Super League, we don't want to be hanging around in this division. We needed to put a squad together that was good enough to get promoted this season. The longer we stay in this division, the more the core Dons' fanbase will disappear. People lose confidence in the club and find different things to do on match days. It's hard to win them back.

On the other hand, teams in this league won't rollover and let you win. They want to progress and better themselves too. I believe the club and coaching staff are working hard to achieve the best they can with what we've got. I think the fundamental problem is that we've not got enough quality and class within the squad to make us believe we have more chance of going up than not. With our defensive frailties, I consider we're certainly underdogs to go up. I would have hoped by this time in the season, I'd be thinking we'd be unlucky not to go up, rather than thinking we'll be lucky to go up.

We're still in there with a chance and we've got to do everything we can to make sure we're at our best for the important games to come.

For me, the biggest single issue is that we seem to have made the same mistakes this season as we did last season. We've under-estimated the strength of the opposition. The thing that worries me if we don't go up is that our better players will leave due to getting better offers elsewhere, and we'll be left to start all over again.

As fans, I think the only positive contribution we can make is to get behind the players and encourage them to do their best and hope things go our way through to the end of the season.

Having watched the tries it looked like some very tired bodies
In defence for the last few tries.

if you read Gary Thornton's take on the Toulouse game it really does make you wonder.
He reckons that just about all of the Toulouse tries, particularly in the first half came as a direct result of Dons' cock-ups (my words not his).
Gary, Gary Gary ... you're not just a spectator, you can intervene.
The mind boggles!

The Dons on a match day are the players and YOU.
You can't treat and blame the players in isolation, take some responsibility.
If they are failing, so are you.

Harsh?

To be fair, from memory all the Donny tries came from silly mistakes or slackness in defence also.

Which verifies what he says ...we must be slow learners then as it happens nearly every game.
I know rugby isn't an exact Science and that mistakes will be made however much you try to eliminate them, but the term 'silly mistakes' points to stupidity rather than unavoidable mistakes.

Mind you, this type of thing normally happens to sides under pressure ... perhaps we can't handle pressure very well.
My overriding ethos would be play as team and think about your actions before you let your teammates down.

It does rile, when folk are saying that but for stupidity and clumsiness we could have beaten Toulouse.
That is just not being an outfit with a professional approach.

Anyway nothing seems to change on that front ... no use moaning about it!

i think he meant silly mistakes & slackness in the Toulouse defence, for Dons to score

Yes, exactly my point. Mistakes in the Toulouse defence allowed Donny to score most of their points. The French coach was livid his team had let in five tries. All in all a game of errors which probably made it so entertaining !

I didn't read it right, I feel a bit better ... but not much

Toulouse shouldn't lose a game which means keighley. York. Rochdale dropping points. We should win our next 4 with only rochdale that should give us a scare. Then York and keighley have to play each other you would assume one team would lose.
The top 4 target looks in the bag to me

Can you get me one of those bags please?

You can't buy these bags for 5p you know.

They cost faith and support in yhe team

The table as it stands with matches left:

Toulouse 9 17: New A, Kei H, N Wal A, York H, Lon A
Rochdale 10 17: New H, Hem A, Kei H, Dons H
York 9 15: Hun H, Oxf A, Glou H, Tou A, Kei A
Keighley 9 14: N Wal A, Tou A, Bar H, Roch A, York H
Dons 10 14: S Wal H, Lon A, Hem H, Roch A
Barrow 10 13: Lon H, Hem H, Kei A, Oxf H
London 9 10: Bar A, S Wal A, Dons H, Glou A, Tou H
Hunslet 10 10: York A, Cov H, Newc H, S Wal A

The best outcome for the Dons is if Toulouse beat Keighley and York. Toulouse could end up 27 points.

The best we can do is 22 points if we win all four, and 20 points if we lose to Rochdale.

If Rochdale lose to Toulouse but beat the Dons, they will have 23 points. They’d finish above us. If we beat Rochdale, they only have 21, and we’d be above them.

If York lose to Toulouse but beat Keighley, they will have 23 points and we can’t catch them regardless of whether we beat Rochdale. If they lose to Keighley but we beat Rochdale, we would be above them.

Keighley have the toughest run in. N Wales away, Toulouse away, Barrow at home, Rochdale away, and York at home means it’s hard to predict their finally tally as they’re on 14 points at the moment. If we get 22 points, they’d need to win four of those games to match us. If we lose at Rochdale, then three wins could catch us.

Barrow have 13 points. They look to have an easier run in apart from Keighley away. If they won all four, they’d have 21 points, which wouldn’t catch us if we win all our remaining games but they could if we lose at Rochdale.

The potential banana skin for us is the London game. We really can’t afford to lose that one. Should we lose that one and lose at Rochdale, 18 points probably won’t be good enough for fourth, although mathematically it may be if Barrow only won two of their last four (17 points) and Keighley only win one of their last five (16 points).

Points difference could play a part. We need to make sure we put plenty past S Wales and Hemel.

Of course, this is only the posturing for the last 7 games. As long as we finish in the top five at the very end of the season, we’re in the play-off mix.

I'm a scientist, I don't do faith ... science is evidence based, faith is just hope.

Bastien Canet charged for a dangerous throw in this game - Hearing 14/06/2016.