DONCASTER have finally made it out of League One – and I’m delighted for their chief executive Carl Hall.
My old Leeds team-mate is a Rugby League man through and through and has put plenty of time and effort into the South Yorkshire club.
Doncaster got the better of North Wales Crusaders, who finished the season really strongly, in the play-off final.
It was the third year they had made that match, and in the previous two, they lost to Workington, then Swinton.
I know Doncaster had targeted top spot and automatic promotion, but that went to Dewsbury under Liam Finn.
And when they ended up in the play-offs, they maybe thought ‘here we go again’, but fair play to Richard Horne and his team.
And fair play to Doncaster for sticking with him – and also bolstering the squad with the mid-season additions of Mahe Fonua, Bureta Faraimo and Albert Vete from Castleford.
In the event, I believe Faraimo only played once, but when Misi Taulapapa was ruled out of the final through injury, he was a useful deputy!
Hopefully Doncaster can mount a challenge in the Championship, and with Carl’s drive and a tidy stadium, they are well set up for club grading.
In many ways, it’s more of a Rugby League spot than Sheffield, and while Doncaster were regular strugglers in days gone by, these are different times.
While Doncaster are celebrating, my local club Hunslet are contemplating another season in a shrinking League One – unless the RFL decide to merge it with the Championship.
I think quite a few people saw the withdrawal of London Skolars coming, and a nine-club division doesn’t cut it in my eyes.
It also poses the question of how to engineer enough meaningful matches to provide sufficient cash flow when central funding is so low.
I’m not sure if Hunslet did the right thing in confirming so early on that coach Alan Kilshaw was moving to Swinton for next season.
Maybe it unsettled the squad at a crucial time and was a factor in Hunslet’s play-off defeat at home to North Wales.
