Seems to have settled down for a few minutes ...

70 mins Rochdale 36 Dons 40

FT Rochdale 36 Dons 40

In loosely related news ... Result ... Sheffield Eagles 12 Hunslet Hawks 16.

The one year I dont go to Rochdale and this happens!!!!

Well done all...

Play like Brazil as long as you score more than other team doesn't matter what happens at other end....

Honestly thought it would be tight today but that is first class...

Not sure what either Coach will make of it but I suspect that ours will happily take a win from 22-0 down.

Well done the Dons ... I would have left after 20 minutes.

I did think of that at 22-0.

Right, NRC over, let's get down to the business of blasting Thatto ... and then following on from that, blasting South Wales for being lucky enough to have met us when we were so weak last year. They are in for a rude awakening.
It genuinely does look like the Dons can do really well in this division if they buckle down.

i was admittedly ready to leave after 22-0 down. Have to say though it ended up being a brilliant game to watch. Easy to see who our impact players are. Butterfield and Kesik to name two. Well done to the lads today, Really enjoyed the game even if it did keep us at the edge of our seats until the end.

Never has a game that meant so little meant so much to win! It was head in hands stuff after the first 20 minutes, particularly with Sanderson being carried off looking in a bad way (although I did see him in the car park after the match looking fine). After that it was just barn storming stuff, angles being run galore!

As mentioned above Butterfield, and particularly Kesik turned the game with Kes running everything, as the game went on Spaven got his grasp firmly on the game and showed up well to. With our goal kicker off the pitch we missed quite a lot of conversion which should have made the tense ending a lot less tense, but I don;t mind that tension if we go on to win the game!

Hopefully we can take a lot of confidence from that and press on to the real stuff

I can't believe it! We both had a bad cold this week and didn't bother going!



Well done to the lads, and roll on Saturday. Although we have not qualified for the next round we have beaten both teams we have played from our own division.

What was the attendance yesterday?

4 hundred odd...although didn't look to be anywhere near as many as we had against Dewsbury last week

442 to be exact.

We've commented before on how Rochdale seem to have far bigger attendances than there are people present....

If the rest of the season is as enjoyable as yesterday i for one will be well-pleased.
Well-Done to all the team.

I'd be a nervous wreck!

If there were over 400 people there then the guy counting them in must have had double vision .

Some of the crowds at this level are becoming really worrying, but don't worry according to Sky everything in the garden is rosy.

Well I know the crowd at the Queens match was worrying.

We were hanging on at the end and I thought they had pinched it late on. Not a game for the purists but end to end stuff and we were all biting the fingernails at the end.Dont let the scoreline fool anyone either as I think we are loads better than Hornets. We gave them the points at the beginning with sloppy play and giving away penalties and in reality they shouldnt have been in it.
If theres anything the coaching staff have to do this week its sort out the discipline as we gave away far too many penalties throughout the match and the top sides will punish us for it.
As Jemmo says though the game changed when Kez came on and from then on we looked like scoring every time we went forward.Butterfield also did well when he came on and scored a nice try.

Well done to the lads and best of luck next week as I cant be there for the cup game.

Wasn't I banging on about penalties and discipline being a big contributor to our defeat against Dewsbury?
And that Miller should address it?
Waste of time then?

The ref was keen with both teams but we need to learn from it early on.I dont know what the penalty count was yesterday but we seemed to give more away late on when we were hanging on.Trouble was it was giving Hornets good field position and inviting them on.

10-9 in favour of Rochdale.