Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Sun Jul 21, 2019 4:04 pm  

Update Sunday 21st July 2019:

Newcastle 34 - 16 London
W Wales 44 - 16 Coventry
N Wales 0 - 30 Dons
Workington 52 – 4 Keighley

A convincing win for the Dons in North Wales by 30 points to 0 lifts us into 4th place ahead of Hunslet on points difference. This should be a nice confidence booster after the set-back against Whitehaven.

Hunslet didn’t play this weekend. They have two games in hand but a stiff run-in to end the season.

Newcastle beat London to stay in second place. London are in freefall at the moment.

West Wales ended a losing run of 43 games to beat Coventry 44-16. Prior to this match they’d only scored 128 points in their previous 15 games.

Former Dons man Louis Sheriff featured for Keighley in their 52 – 4 defeat at Workington. Workington overtake London and jump to 6th place.

The League Table: (Pld, Points, Points Diff, Maximum possible points if winning all remaining games))

1) Whitehaven 15 23 +123 (Max 33)
2) Newcastle 15 21 +207 (Max 31)
3) Oldham 15 20 +221 (Max 30)
4) Dons 16 18 +218 (Max 26)
5) Hunslet 14 18 +202 (Max 30)
6) Workington 16 16 +82 (Max 24)
7) London 16 15 -78 (Max 23)

Remaining games for each team are:

Dons: London (H), Oldham (A), Keighley (H), Workington (A).
Whitehaven: Hunslet (A), Workington (H), Keighley (A), W Wales (H), Coventry (A). Two wins needed to definitely finish ahead of the Dons.
Newcastle: W Wales (A), Oldham (A), Coventry (H), N Wales (H), Keighley (A). Three wins out of five will see Newcastle finish above the Dons.
Oldham: London (A), Newcastle (H), Dons (H), Coventry (A), Hunslet (A).
Hunslet: Whitehaven (A), N Wales (H), Keighley (A), London (A), Workington (H), Oldham (H). Five wins would be needed for Hunslet to definitely finish above the Dons.
Workington: Whitehaven (A), W Wales (H), Hunslet (A), Dons (H).
London: Oldham (H), Dons (A), Hunslet (H), N Wales (A).

The Dons will be strong favourites to beat London next time out. We then have a vital game at Oldham. Our best case scenario seems like a third place finish (ahead of Oldham and Hunslet) with Newcastle and Whitehaven possibly being too far ahead to be caught, especially considering their remaining games.

Finishing in fourth place will be considerably better than finishing 5th or 6th as far as the play-offs go. Third place would be better still!

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Sun Jul 21, 2019 4:46 pm  

We're capable. Ordinarily I'd have said we need to keep momentum going but this break now could be a godsend. I fear no one going into last 4 league games.

[Wanderer]

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Mon Jul 22, 2019 7:58 am  

Great result yesterday.

Looking at the remaining fixtures, Whitehaven and Newcastle really ought to finish first and second. I regret to say that I can't honestly see the Dons finishing any higher than third (left with too much to do and fixtures running out).

Oldham's games against the Dons and Hunslet are pivotal to who finishes third. Third place is certainly not beyond the Dons but I suspect that we'll need to win all four games. My gut feel is that we will finish fourth but I'd be thrilled with anything better.

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:07 am  

Fixtures affecting the top sides before we play London on 11th August:

27th July: Hunslet v Whitehaven

3rd August: London v Oldham
3rd August: W Wales v Newcastle
4th August: Hunslet v N Wales
4th August: Whitehaven v Workington

10th August: Keighley v Hunslet

Assuming we can’t catch Whitehaven (as they will beat W Wales and Coventry and will mathematically be out of our reach) we could do with them beating Hunslet. We could also do with them beating Workington.

As London are less of a threat than Oldham, we could do with London beating Oldham.

N Wales could do us a favour by beating Hunslet. Keighley could do the same favour on the day before we play London.

Hunslet play three times before we next play - our situation relative to them will be quite a bit clearer.

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Mon Jul 22, 2019 1:01 pm  

Perhaps a question for another thread.

I appreciate that we’re not due a home fixture for a few weeks but is the Keepmoat pitch playable now?

It seems a bit ironic if it’s available now that we don’t have any upcoming matches after our Featherstone away days.

[Jemmo]

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Mon Jul 22, 2019 1:59 pm  

Yes it is, I believe the Rovers have a friendly at home this weekend, and we were scheduled to be playing Newcastle at home this sunday. So yes i believe it is ready

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:53 pm  

Cheers Jemma, I’d forgotten about the Newcastle game.

I wonder if, with a bit better planning & shuffling of fixtures, the Featherstone experiences could have been avoided.

Apologies for going over old ground but I know a number of people who were disappointed with the arrangements.

Only hoping it doesn’t stop them from supporting the club in future.

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Mon Jul 22, 2019 5:37 pm  

Gerry Monside wrote:

Cheers Jemma, I’d forgotten about the Newcastle game.

I wonder if, with a bit better planning & shuffling of fixtures, the Featherstone experiences could have been avoided.

Apologies for going over old ground but I know a number of people who were disappointed with the arrangements.

Only hoping it doesn’t stop them from supporting the club in future.

As it's the Challenge Cup semi-finals, it appears as though no league games have been scheduled for 28th July. The Hunslet match (the only one being played) seems to have been 'carried over' from last weekend's scheduled games.

I too seem to recall we were due to play Newcastle on the 28th July but I can't be 100% sure about it. Is anyone certain we were originally due to play this weekend?

If so, I'll raise this as a question at the next Fans Forum Meeting on 29th August.

Thanks.

[Wanderer]

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Tue Jul 23, 2019 7:09 am  

When the original fixture list was released, the home game against Newcastle was scheduled for Sunday 23 June 2019 at the Keepmoat Stadium.

On 30 April 2019, the Dons announced that two fixtures had been moved to Featherstone. One of them was the Newcastle game and that it would also now take place on Sunday 28 July 2019.

On 15 June 2019, the Dons announced that at the request of Newcastle Thunder the game would return to it's original weekend but be played at Featherstone on Saturday 22 June 2019 with a 12:30 kick off. Newcastle's position at the time was that they did not wish to travel midweek and at that stage the Dons were still in the 1895 Cup and could have ended up with a fixture in that competition on Sunday 28 July 2019 (The semi finals are on Sunday).

Re: Dons Up To 4th - Review Of Promotion Race : Tue Jul 23, 2019 7:25 am  

Wanderer wrote:

When the original fixture list was released, the home game against Newcastle was scheduled for Sunday 23 June 2019 at the Keepmoat Stadium.

On 30 April 2019, the Dons announced that two fixtures had been moved to Featherstone. One of them was the Newcastle game and that it would also now take place on Sunday 28 July 2019.

On 15 June 2019, the Dons announced that at the request of Newcastle Thunder the game would return to it's original weekend but be played at Featherstone on Saturday 22 June 2019 with a 12:30 kick off. Newcastle's position at the time was that they did not wish to travel midweek and at that stage the Dons were still in the 1895 Cup and could have ended up with a fixture in that competition on Sunday 28 July 2019 (The semi finals are on Sunday).

Thanks Gary. Even if the game had been arranged for the Keepmoat on 28th July, we would still have ended up playing at Fev due to the 1895 cup situation. The Keepmoat pitch must have been presumed not to be ready by 28th July either, which now appears not to be the case.