Dons In 4th place - six games left to play : Sun Jul 07, 2019 4:40 pm
League One Results from w/e 7th July 2019:London 20, Coventry 36
W Wales 0, Dons 72
N Wales 30, Workington 18
Hunslet 12, Newcastle 26
Whitehaven 16, Oldham 10
The Dons improved their points difference with a convincing win in Wales. London can’t buy a win at the moment and lost to Coventry.
North Wales added more woe to Workington’s season inflicting a defeat upon them.
In the battle at the top, Whitehaven just got the better of Oldham.
Hunslet lost at home to Newcastle as Newcastle overtake Oldham in second spot.
Keighley were resting this weekend.
League Table (Pld, Points, Points Diff)
1) Whitehaven 14, 21, +113
2) Newcastle 14, 19, +189
3) Oldham 14, 18, +205
4) Dons 14, 16, +198
5) Hunslet 13, 16, +174
6) London 14, 15, -50
7) Workington 14, 12, +24
N Wales 14, 12, +7The top six play-off. Teams play 20 games in total.
Next weekend’s game against Whitehaven is a ‘must win’ game if we want to keep our automatic promotion hopes alive. Should Whitehaven win next weekend, they’d be on 23 points, 7 points ahead of the Dons, with five games left. In effect, Whitehaven would only need to win two more games to be assured of finishing ahead of us.
After the Dons match, Whitehaven’s remaining games are:
Hunslet (A)
Workington (H)
Keighley (A)
W Wales (H)
Coventry (A)
They’d be strong favourites to beat W Wales and Coventry, so our chances of finishing top would all but disappear should we lose against them next weekend.
If we beat Whitehaven, they’d only be three points ahead. Providing we win all our remaining games, they’d have to drop at least three points from their last five matches to be caught. As it stands, I can see them winning at least four of their remaining five, thereby scuppering our chances of automatic promotion but stranger things have happened!
At the bottom end of the play-off battle, N Wales and Workington (in 7th and 8th places) are now four points adrift of the Dons. With London in decline in 6th place, one point adrift of us, it seems highly unlikely we’ll not get in the play-offs.
The Dons remaining games are:
Whitehaven (at Fev)
N Wales (A)
London (H)
Oldham (A)
Keighley (H)
Workington (A)
North Wales (A) and Oldham (A) could be tricky games but we should be able to beat them, especially as we seem to have Oldham’s measure based on the games we've already played against them.
London (H) should be a home win. Keighley will put up a good fight but we should be too good for them.
Workington (A) ought to be within our scope although trips to Cumbria are never easy.
Next weekend’s games are:
Coventry v Hunslet
Dons v Whitehaven
Keighley v W Wales
Oldham v N Wales
Workington v London
We could do with N Wales turning Oldham over.
The following weekend:
Newcastle v London
W Wales v Coventry
N Wales v Dons
Workington v Keighley
Hunslet v Whitehaven (27th July)
I'm sure there'll be plenty of twists and turns to come in the next few weeks!
