He's not been place kicking for us, that seems to be a skill we're blessed with this year

Thought he put in a good performance for only his 2nd game for the Dons.He doesn't appear to have a squad number for you so have you got other no 7's in the squad who would have preference if your regular 7 is injured?

Thing is our main halfbacks are Isaac John and Tim Smith who can't goal kick. Then there is Matty Wildie who I think can't kick. Dale Morton can kick, but Agar is not playing him. Hyde can kick, and I thought he looked decent for most of the games he played last year, then Kear suddenly dropped him for the rest of the season and stuck with Tommy Lee and Jeremy Smith

We have more 7's, they just can't goal kick.

I am very happy with the showing today. We need to keep our feet on the ground though as there is a long way to go, and i am sure there will be some downs as well as ups. But you can't ask for more than that performance.

The only downer was white shirt numbers!

Can we get a bigger no10 shirt for Dean O'Loughlin , its a bit much asking Craig Robinson to stretch it for him.

A good start to the season and I will be attending quite a few of the home games this year.

We played some expansive rugby at times and Cooke was the best player on the pitch by a mile, I also thought Robinson was outstanding in attack and defense to.

Agree Steve, Robbo goes about his job in a professional manner . Glad you enjoyed the afternoon .

I also have to give a mention to Mark Castle too. He ran with real force all game, but there was one run where I swear he carried 3 Whitehaven players on his back, and they genuinely looked scared of tackling him.

Cooke really did control the game. Today showed what we lacked all season last year. I can opnly applaud the club for listening to the supporters and acting on our views.

Just be better when the new kit arrives so we can see the numbers.

couldnt fault any of the players yesterday. excellent team performance and a well earned win. stand out players for me were castle cooke kesik and robbo. also think hyde played well i'm glad to see a good 6 and 7!!
very promising start to the league although im presuming barrow will be a tougher test!! COYD

Well I did come back and here goes -

I know it's early days and not to get too carried away but what a contrast from the Sheffield game. This was one of the most professional performances I've seen at the DONS for many a year. OK, there's always room for improvement but for the first league match of the season I don't think any of us could have wished for a better result. I may be proven wrong, and that not difficult, but I don't think we'll see many teams put almost 50 points past Whitehaven this season.

From a business perspective, it's clear to see all the effort which has been put in 'behind the scenes' to pull together what we experienced yesterday. Maybe us fans sometimes don't always appreciate what I hard job it must be running the club, we only see what's delivered on the pitch. Credit where credit is due.

I may not be able to attend many if any away games but I'll certainly be investing a few more pounds on the home games.

Excellent, glad you gave them the chance to prove that the Sheffield game was not what we are about

Don't think I can add much more than has been said here, very professional performance, took our chances well and finished some great tries. Stand out performances for me from Cooke, with Hyde giving him the space he needed to do what he does best. And Cas and Robbo were blinding in the forwards. I am also getting increasingly impressed with Lee Waterman as the season goes on.

Best performance i’ve seen in the Blue and Gold of the Dons for a long-long while.
Cooke bossed the field from start to finish and no one had a bad game.
Ball handling and the kicking game was top notch, and the strength of tackling both in attack and defence was outstanding.
And to be honest i can only see us improving as the side plays week in week out.
Well done to everyone at the club.
Now looking forward to the rest of the season.

It'll be interesting to see if that is the case, but to put a performance in, like that, against a team who are undoubtedly one of the favourites for promotion this season, is a great starter.

When I was having a natter prematch with a few of the people on the press side, they remarked that it is probably the biggest Dons pack in many a year, and that its not just big, but talented too. With the likes of Sampson, Ely and Powley not in the 17 yesterday from the forwards side, we're beginning to get some depth in the essential areas at last.

Glad you saw the light. You know it makes sense!

Its probably all been said in the previous couple of pages but that was one hell of a performance yesterday and bodes extremely well for the league campaign if we can keep the majority of players free from serious injuries.

Kyle Sampson not included also, I think he also has shown signs of improvement on his last season form.

Excellent performance on Sunday.

Let's hope we can string a few wins together and in a worst case scenario have three wins from the first four games. That should help to attract a few more fans down, and a good win in the Challenge Cup with a nice draw in the next round won't go amiss either!

Well done to everyone at the club.

Isn't it good that the only negative was the white shirt numbers!

Excellent performance from 1 to 17 and if Cooke keeps that up there will be no doubt of value for money. Also pleased that in Hyde we have someone to take the pressure off of Cooke. With no disrespect to Fawcett for me Hyde and Cooke are key. For me I think Fawcett has the ability to do more or less anything he wants to do he just doesn't seem to know what to do when and ends up doing not a lot. I was very Impressed with the game management from both halfbacks.

For me the only negatives have nothing to do with us - whitehaven had a few missing I think, also their recent form (according to their site) doesn't look that great ( I think someone already mentioned that on here) and they recently got turned over on their own patch by barrow so personally I think the true test is yet to come. Don't get me wrong I'm thoroughly ecstatic (other than the Carl Hughes injury - does anyone know anything about that yet btw?) I'm just trying to not get carried away. Having said that if we beat barrow I think I'll have to see if any bookies are still taking bets on us to win the league.

ps since when has china been able to knock players on their s when returning a ball? he seems stronger than usual in my opinion in the games I've seen him play so far.

So lots of people on here are raving abt Paul Cooke and also the team, not a one man peformance! well whatever, the club virtually begged for the fans help in securing his services and now the fund is a squad builder fund, contributors named in the programme and they number something like 35 and yes i am one of them, think more could put in, come on peeps i know people say i cant afford this that the other and i respect peoples financial situation etc, come on fans 20p or a pound extra each week from alot is better than a bit by the few even if you cant afford the 20p 0r pound a week encourage someone that can, mighty Oaks from little Acorns Grow, come on you Dons supporters

totally agree , we saw some super league quality try,s on sunday and the promise of more to come ,squadbuilder fund well worth the money why not have a bucket collection on the gate for them that are not in it,my wife who has no interest in rugby pays in to the fund because she knows how much it means to me and my son and the dons supporters.

Dont know if its viable,just a thought, maybe there could be a squadbuilder levy of say 50p on match day tickets that people could opt out of if they wanted to, some would but i would say a lot wouldn,t
.

A bucket collector stood by the half time draw girls outside would be the easiest to sort out. I bet most people would chuck in an extra 50p/£1 whilst they have got their hand in their pockets for a draw ticket.

that would definately be the easiest yes

especially if they were topless !



i'd give them one (pound coin ! ) ....