Unless he's injured, I too find it staggering.

Yes I understand Castle Park is very nice at that time of year.

Thought donny were awful number 4 best player and i never seen one of your supporters either poor following poor performance

Ha! I'm surprised you know what they all look like! Where were these two the last few years? Weird that

Yes the good old poor following quote. Congrats on your win. Enjoy, oh you appear to be doing that already.

Agree, people get outraged so easilly over so little it worries me they have nowhere to go anger wise for stuff like terrorism, child abuse and George Osbourne

Not sure if George is into that, fiddling the books maybe

Hi, peeps,its going to be very difficult not to jump on the doom and gloom ,gravy train, But by the sounds of things and the number of posts on here tonight we are not the happiest rugby fans at the mo. I to believe we should ditch the DR agreement why leave players like Robbo leafy and weller (unless injured) tp play guys who dont give a sh8t about our club. Play the players we have signed and if we dont win a game all season at least we can build for next year. I would rather pay to see Doncaster players get beat than players who are here one week gone the next, I want to see the DONS NOT Hull 2nd / 3rd tier players. We need to make radical changes, special "Hello" to my dictionary mate S,O, . ps I do like your sense of humour, think we are all gonna need one this year. COYDs

Bang on the money for me HD. If we are to get a stuffing next week and I was just wondering if the Widnes score at the Keepmoat is in danger, then I would rather pay my money to watch a Doncaster side trying its hardest rather than this Humberside hybrid that lets be honest, is clearly not working. That is not disrespect to Hull and its staff and we have entered that agreement with the best intention but something is clearly amiss at the club at present IMO.

By not recruiting quality players with experience in the winter, we have been left behind when compared to how other clubs have spent their money.

The consequence is that we need the extra quality to come from Hull as we don't have it ourselves. This isn't how it should be, and I wish it wasn't that way.

We should be able to control our own destiny but I fear we are not going to be good enough based on the quality of the other sides in this league. We forgave the team for a bad showing against Hunslet in the pre-season game but as it turns out, that seems to be a fair marker as to where we're actually at.

I would rather we got help from Hull, make sure we stay up, and prepare for next season properly in this division, rather than possibly get relegated, lose sponsorship money, and find ourselves in an even more difficult position.

Staying up this season is our priority and we need all the help we can get to stay up.

Getting relegated is not an option, especially after building in the last 2 seasons.
But then again it won't be for every other club in this division either.
And that's how hard its going to be this season, extremely tough.
I said this season was going to be tough from the start.
Especially with how we recruited and that's proving to be our downfall so far.
Only time will tell if they got it right

Wonder why we sign Tom Holt and Josh Kittirick both stand offs and yet we go to Hull for a player to fill in who may well be a forward. If they are not good enough why did we sign them? Havent a second team to bring them on so how do they get experience?

There are two ways to go ....
We let our confidence get shot to pieces and give up or we sit down and acknowledge that we've been kidding ourselves about the unimportance of the lost friendlies and realise we are short on skill and will need to graft a lot harder to make up for it.
But first we need to stop kidding ourselves, we are the underdogs now in most games and let's see who the men are.
Stand up and be counted you Dons.

I think today ought to be a low point from which we will improve.
As it stands now it's a relegation battle we are in.

I just feel sorry for the lads, and this poor start puts loads of pressure on Paul Cooke.
I like the guy and he deserved better than this after his great work in recent years.
It's time he got some more help, he can only do so much.

Wow are you in for a shock,have seen better games in the Pennine league than this one.

I have no interest in what the opposition do or achieve.

I will say this for one - whether this policy of recruitment has been forced on club by the main board or not...it is has everyone expected the wrong one..

Sorry but being relegated from this league is equivalent of going bust..

Accept as a club that we need to change what we are currently doing- we are taking DR players who tbh have shown nothing more than what we have... albeit what we have in many positions isn't up to scratch. We signed two LT injured players as part of recruitment.

Whole thing is mental - 4 friendlies 3 season games NO win....

And for crying out loud sort the bl**dy stupid penalties out - Same names same offences same outcome points against on board...same match summary from coach...

Bored and I think we can be rightly frustrated - already chucked a lot of money at it this season...

Well done to those that went - should get money back tbh - IMO

I'm all for home grown talent and giving youngsters a chance but i honestly think our recruitment for without doubt the toughest championship standard to date has been shocking, i like others rate cooke as a coach very highly and hope he's here a long time but whilst we will do enough to starve off relegation ive got a feeling its gonna be a long season ahead! COYD

And there lies the problem. The main board (of Patienceform - Doncaster Rovers) and in particular their Chief Executive. We have signed a squad on the cheap, and it is costing us badly.

Paul Cooke wanted to sign a number of players but wasn't allowed to because of the budget imposed on the Dons this year. This is despite securing the 4th place prize money and a (supposed) increase in sponsorship income.

I did try asking about both of these at the fans forum but didn't get an answer.

You do have to wonder if Mr Dickov's signings over the past season and flurry of activity in January were funded by the Dons winnings and Eagles money.

Don't forgot the monies from dons for life was supposed to be for player recruitment and it not happening plus what eagles are paying and the prize monies from last seasons adds up to a lot as far as I see it we have no extra expenditure , I said from before friendlies that we would struggle big time and so we are and will continue so ,we have seen the other clubs all sign top class players so we have been left behind big style ,oh forgot to mention the season tickets sales to be included , only going one way

Well we were told at the fans forum that our budget was as it should be given our winnings and that the Rovers have not syphoned any off ... and I have no reason to doubt that at all.
Let's face it, if it ever came out that they were doing something like that, even if they own us and can, the Dons would be finished.
So we can conclude that we have spent poorly or we have kept a reserve or both.

The players that don't play and so don't get match fees ... do they get some sort of basic retainer, if so how much?

Apart from Cookey, Snitch and Scotty (now a class Scottish international), we have no 'names'.
No disrespect to the lads, I admire anyone who plays such a hard game.

Hunslet could afford Andy Kain, but we couldn't, and although he might not have wanted to come here anyway, we didn't have what he wanted. There can't have been enough money left or we would have bought him.

I'm left feeling that the lads must be on a bit more money each, because apart from a few additional players (lads really) I can't see where the money went.
COYD

I just wanted to remind everyone of these comments to Doncaster Rovers supporters by their Chief Executive.

[urlhttp://m.southyorkshiretimes.co.uk/sport/local-sport/gavin-baldwin-our-plan-to-preserve-doncaster-rovers-1-6425463[/url

And actually Stand-offish, weren't actually told that re playing budgets. What we were told was that it was the biggest budget to date.

How certain are you of that?
I know I may get branded a 'club apologist' by some on here, but to be honest, I kind of don't give a flying toss...
I've spoken to people involved with the club who said that the budget on offer to Cooke this year was far bigger than anything the club has ever operated with (I know a figure, but cannot say what it was), and that he has chosen to develop the squad this way and try and build a sustainable future for the club, rather than going all out and ending up in a similar position to what we have been in previous years. There are names I've heard mentioned that have been offered to the Dons for next season that are far and away bigger names than most we have at the club at the moment, and thats as a result of the way that the club is being run under the instruction of Hall and Cooke.

But what will be the point if we are in League 1 next year.

I thought you'd said previously you weren't watching us next year anyway?

I won't be. But I at least expected the team to be competetive this year.