High-flying Dons keep feet firmly on the floor after precious victory

Despite being happy to have seen his side retain second spot and inflict third-placed Oldham’s first home defeat of the season, Horne was critical of their handling at times – though the home side also suffered a low completion rate in the second half as the ball became more greasy.

Horne was particularly critical of the Dons’ first half display and had no complaints with the 16-6 interval scoreline in Oldham’s favour.

“They completed better than we did and when we got the chance to put them under pressure we didn’t do that apart from the try we scored and bombed several chances.

“We spoke about our lack of skill levels at half time and that was also something we’d talked about in midweek because I thought at times that our skill levels were way off against Rochdale even though we won easily in the end.

“We moved the ball about more than they did because we wanted to move their big men about. But because of the amount of dropped ball we weren’t able to do that as much as we would have liked and we went a bit one-out (at times) which made it easier for them to defend.

“But we played much better in the second half and it is an 80-minute game.

“It was a bit of a setback when they scored first after the break to go 22-6 ahead because we had spoken about the importance of the first score.

“But we’ve got a group of players who work hard for each other and they’ve got a never-say-die attitude. We’ve also got some strike threat in the halves and on the edges and they came up with some plays to get us back in the game.

“They lost the momentum when we started to get on top in the second half and it’s hard to get it back. Although they finished strongly we scrambled well and got the job done.”

Impressed by the performance of on-loan utility-back Josh Gudaz, who caught the eye in both attack and defence, Horne is hoping that Oldham can do the Dons a favour in Friday’s game away at table-topping Dewsbury who were lucky to escape with a point when they met at the Vestacare Stadium.