[Wanderer]

Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:42 pm  

Having successfully negotiated two rounds of the Challenge Cup, the latter last weekend against Featherstone Lions, the Dons return to League action against the team they beat in the previous round of the Challenge Cup, Coventry Bears.

How much can be read into that 38-16 Cup victory remains to be seen. In terms of League form, both teams currently have a 2 wins, 2 losses record.

Coach Richard Horne will be afforded the opportunity to bring back dual registration players for this fixture but recent acquisitions Stefanos Bastas and Elliot Townsend staked good claims for inclusion with their performances at the LD Nutrition Stadium.

Last Season: Doncaster 70 Coventry Bears 10 (Sunday 18 February 2018).
Dons Tries: Jason Tali 2, Brad England, Russ Spiers 2, Liam Harris 2, Zac Braham, Hakim Miloudi 4.
Dons Conversions: Jack Miller 3, Hakim Miloudi 8.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Wed Apr 03, 2019 4:31 pm  

The Dons fixtures shown on the right of this forum page shows the Coventry match as being a 3pm kick-off on Saturday. They've clearly made a mistake as it's definitely on Sunday.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:08 pm  

I hope that we play better than we did in the cup game against Coventry, the final scoreline was a tad unfair on them.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:02 pm  

I hope Beryl is back ... goodness knows where he went for the cup game.

Looking forward to some cohesion on Sunday.
We are not very professional compared with where we should be.
Should be the best side in the league ...
Incrementally we are getting better ... a euphemism for 'very slowly'.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:45 am  

My biggest concern is our inability to get away from our own goal line. I'll be looking for some considerable improvement in this area.

Beryl provides the creativity. I very much hope he's back.

As Moonshine mentioned, the scoreline in the cup perhaps flattered us but I would expect our ranks to be boosted by some Hull input at the weekend.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:47 pm  

Ha Ha DM hull involvement that's a laugh

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:49 pm  

I'm trying to make some sense of the Miloudi to Toronto situation....

Radford doesn't seem to rate Miloudi and I suspect he will off-load him permanently if he can.

Looking at our forthcoming fixtures, apart from a potential banana skin at Keighley on 19th April, we haven't got a game that should seriously test us until 9th June when we play Oldham at home, ignoring the cup game against Batley as we presumably won't have any Hull players that weekend anyway.

I imagine Hull will save more money by sending him to Toronto than by him coming to the Dons for our three league games between now and 17th May. From that point of view it makes sense for Hull to do what they're doing. From our point of view, the available DR players is reduced, and a very good quality player at this level won't be playing for us.

I love watching Miloudi play. I'm saddened that he won't be playing for us on Sunday. If he is going to leave Hull permanently, we may never see him play for us again.

I seem to recall Jemmo or Wanderer saying at the start of the season that we need Miloudi to stay in Radford's plans but not quite be good enough to get in the first team on a regular basis. I suspect he might no longer be part of Lee Radford's plans.

It'll be interesting to see who does come from Hull this weekend.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Fri Apr 05, 2019 8:54 am  

Miloudi only has good things to say about Carl Hall, Richard Horne, and Dons fans. His lack of praise for anything at Hull seems to suggest he hasn't got a good relationship with Lee Radford.

The lad clearly wants to have the chance to play at Super League level again and moving to Toronto (maybe on loan for the rest of the season) gives him a window to prove himself.

He was potentially a wayward lad when he first came to the Dons. I hope we've helped him to get his life in order in some small way and I wish him every success for the future. I'll miss him playing for the Dons.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:06 pm  

Connor Wynne To make his debut for Hull on Sunday.... looking now like the wrong decision by Horne and Hall to not sign a full back of our own in the pre season.

Re: Coventry Bears (Home) - Sunday 7 April 2019 15:00 : Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:23 pm  

Richard Owen is a more than capable full back for us.