Thronton disappointed at defeat

[Dons News]

Gary Thornton felt his players lost their focus at key times as they suffered defeat in their first competitive outing of 2017.

The Dons lost 30-22 at Keighley in the iPro Sports Cup, despite leading by eight points at half time, and Thornton was disappointed with the second half display.

“First half I thought we did OK, and got on the front foot down the slope. We weren’t at our best but scored a couple of tries and managed to get our noses in front by half-time.,” he said.

“The second half was disappointing. They threw a lot at us and put us under pressure right from the restart, and the early sin binning of Hedges gave them more momentum and space down the slope.

“If we want to be challenging in League One this season then we’ll have to be better for the full 80 minutes. I always expected a dog fight on a heavy pitch against the current cup holders, and we have to learn how to stay in these games and come out on top.

“That said, as poor as we were, we still had chance to win the game at 22-20 and camped on their line in the last minute. We took a wrong option, they intercept and its game over.”

The Dons were down to 12 men either side of half time with both Charlie Martin and Jordie Hedges sent to the sin-bin.

“If you look at the timing of their tries, four were scored when we were down to 12 men so they made us pay,” said Thornton

On first viewing I thought Charlie’s yellow card was harsh - it looked like a good rugby league hit to me and my assistants sat in the stand – but the referees view was clearly different to that.

“We’ve got a week now to prepare for Myton in the Challenge Cup and we’ll be looking for a big response from all the players. I keep re-iterating how tough League 1 will be this season, and the boys need to realise that pretty quickly.

“Hopefully this is a wake-up call. We had some very disappointed boys in the sheds at the end of the game, so I hope they will be looking to put things right for themselves, the team and the fans next time out.”

 

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[weighman]

No disrespect To Keighley who were the better side over the 80 mins we had no plan B yesterday !