Rochdale Hornets 10 - 20 Doncaster

Rochdale Hornets were beaten 20-10 in their League 1 opener by Doncaster at the Crown Oil Arena on Sunday 5 March.

Despite tries from Ben O'Keefe and Cian Tyrer in either half, Hornets fell short as Doncaster crossed four times to continue their unbeaten start to the season.

The visitors opened the scoring after 15 minutes when a neat exchange down the left created space for Connor Robinson to sprint clear, before he dummied his way past the last defender.

Rochdale responded five minutes later, as Dan Brewin side-stepped his way through a gap before offloading to Jack Arnold, who took Hornets metres out.

Despite playing on the final tackle, Hornets worked the ball out to the right where O’Keefe was on hand to dive over for his second try in as many weeks.

Doncaster, who are the favourites to be promoted this campaign, regained the lead after 28 minutes when Elliot Hall burst free on the wing before diving over unchallenged.

Rochdale continued to hit the Dons pack hard, and a second try almost came before the break when Luke Forber broke the line and offloaded to Aiden Roden, but the visitors stood firm to maintain their 8-4 advantage at the break.

Doncaster started the second half brightly and they added a third try two minutes after the restart when Greg Burns touched down from close range after an offload fell into his hands.

Hornets almost reduced the points difference immediately, however, despite conceding back-to-back penalties inside their 20m, the Dons defended strongly to keep Rochdale out.

A response came just before the hour when Tyrer intercepted a Doncaster wide pass, before running 60m to touch down unopposed with Dave Hewitt adding the extras to reduce the score to 14-10.

The noise inside the Crown Oil Arena increased, and Rochdale almost levelled the contest when Tyrer accelerated away from multiple attempted tackles before offloading to Forber, who looked to burst through before being tackled.

Doncaster wrapped up the match with nine minutes to go when Robinson's grubber kick bounced kindly into the hands of Jack Sanderson, who touched down.

Despite a late spell of pressure, Hornets were unable to add any further points onto the board as they fell to a 20-10 defeat in their opening League 1 match of the season.

Hornets: Joe Purcell, Cian Tyrer, Will Cooke, Ben O’Keefe, Dan Nixon, Lewis Else, Dave Hewitt, Zac Braham, Cameron Berry, Ben Killan, Duane Straugheir, Dan Brewin, Toby Brannan
Interchanges: Aiden Roden, Jack Arnold, Luke Forber, Ethan O’Hanlon, Ewan Badham [18th man]

Tries: O’Keefe, Tyrer
Goals: Hewitt (1)

Man of the Match: Cameron Berry