Re: Horne : Fri Jul 28, 2023 3:42 pm  

Yes it was a lot of games in a season the players were all part time only13 players no subs the scrum half had to feed the ball in to the middle of the scrum & the front row had to work hard to win the ball from the scrum.
At Christmas they played three game in 7 days Xmas Day, Boxing Day & New Years day & Easter they played Good Friday & Easter Monday & again the following Saturday.

Re: Horne : Fri Jul 28, 2023 10:14 pm  

How do Donny...long time no see.
Take care buddy....we like stats on here so keep up the good work.

Re: Horne : Mon Aug 07, 2023 10:10 pm  

Featherstone sack Sean long who are 8pts clear with just 6 games remaining because they want to ensure promotion, admittedly that seems extreme but they are ambitious and tunnel visioned for going up now compare that with us and horne it's absolutely crazy!

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:54 am  

Featherstone recognise it's this year or never as far as Super League is concerned with IMG rules coming in next year.

Sean Long's sacking does seem rather extreme. James Ford is a good man to have as 'interim coach' but Fev seem to have pressed the panic button. If all clubs had a similar sacking process, no coach would last five minutes.

With regards to Richard Horne, I've never been his greatest fan but I thought we played some very smart rugby in the early part of this season. We completed our sets well, didn't try to score everytime we had the ball and built up pressure on the opposition which eventually ground them down. Connor Robinson's kicking was intrumental in this as we were often turning the ball over very near the opposition's line.

In hindsight, when we were playing a 'near perfect' game, we were only winning by small margins. Once we dropped off from this high performance level, we've become very vulnerable.

In his interview, after North Wales, you could see how disappointed Richard Horne was as they had a game plan to beat them down the middle but we failed. In my view, we have never had a pack that has been good enough to win this league but I thought we were a step closer to it this season. Unfortunately, we're probably not as good as I hoped we were.

There also appeared to be a hint of, 'What else can we do?' in the interview. It must be exasperating for any coach to see a plan ripped up on the field with Plan X, Y or no plan at all taking over.

I do feel for the players as they're proud people and won't want this to be happening. They'll be hurting more than us. The only way out of this downturn is to build up confidence and confidence is only built up by winning. At least we've got a couple of opportunities to do that against London and Cornwall.

If we don't go up, there needs to be a frank and open discussion as to why we've failed to get out of this league again. In the unlikely event that we go up, Club Doncaster will have to make some serious financial investments or else we'll be odds on to come straight back down again.

[Wanderer]

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:17 am  

Double Movement wrote:

Featherstone recognise it's this year or never as far as Super League is concerned with IMG rules coming in next year.

Sean Long's sacking does seem rather extreme.

Featherstone lose and Long is sacked just hours after stories surface linking him with an Assistant Coach role at Warrington ... it will be interesting to see if he does end up at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.

[Wanderer]

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:24 am  

Double Movement wrote:

If we don't go up, there needs to be a frank and open discussion as to why we've failed to get out of this league again.

Is that the one (and you may remember this) where Gavin says Richard continues to have Carl's backing and Carl continues to have mine.

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:36 am  

I expect very light discussions about what went wrong over a beer then come to the conclusion everybody is on a nice little earner so why spoil things we go again!

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:07 am  

If (see when) we fail to get promoted again this season despite seeming to throw money at short-term fixes rather than doing it right over the closed season...Horne needs to be relieved of his duties due to his failure to achieve targets over the last 6 seasons, I would also question the person who has allowed this apathy to continue without taking positive action to ensure the goals were met.

Sadly as others have said it will be "Well done, its been tough be we go again and go all out for winning the League".

Or we get back doored in via the IMG process - due to Stadium etc etc and don't earn the promotion but we stick with Horne as we "got promoted" .

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 11:44 am  

Wanderer wrote:

Is that the one (and you may remember this) where Gavin says Richard continues to have Carl's backing and Carl continues to have mine.

I remember it well. It was part of the reason you and I started to become disillusioned with the purpose of the Fans Panel.

Re: Horne : Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:56 pm  

The fans panel always struck me as an "illusion of being involved" event, similar to the SLO role - Barry did a great job at challenging the status quo, but since then it's been much more "let's just pretend everything is great".