This wasn't so much a game of two halves as a game of threequarters and a quarter. For the fat end of an hour Hornets had bludgeoned and bamboozled Doncaster Dragons to their knees with the season's most complete perfromance of innovative, expressive and devastatingly clinical Rugby League.

Having gone behind to an early penalty, Hornets began the rout in the 9th minute with Paul Smith backing up a Watson and Bunyan break to cruise through and score. This signalled the charge - and it was led in style by Dave Larder. His first try on 15 minutes came through determined support of a Radney Bowker break, dave bouncing off tacklers to plant the ball down. But his try six minutes later was worth the admission money to every game this season.

He broke the first tackle ten metres inside his own half and, swatting defenders as he went, Larder stepped the desperate lunge of Dragons fullback Grix and outpaced the remaining Doncaster chasers. Sheer quality.

Within five minutes larder had smashed throught he defence yet again, returning the earlier favour from Radney Bowker to slot him in from 35 metres.

On the half hour Hornets again exploited a weak Dons Right hand side - Bowkers cut-out pass to Billy; Billy delaying before selling an outrageous dummy before sprinting away to score in the corner. He was followed to the line three minutes later when John Hamilton collected a nifty offload from Matt Long.

Just as Hornets supporters were settling back for a well earned breather, Doncaster sneaked in for a late try to send them in trailing 34-8 at half time.

The second half began following a familiar pattern. Within ten minutes Mick Nanyn had crashed through his opposite number to score and Hornets had put on a passable impression of the Harlem Globetrotters - stringing together over a dozen passes before Jon Roper put Doncaster out of their misery sending Paul Owen in to score. 50 minutes - 50-8: and the switch in Mr Laughton's head clicked on.

Slowly the penalty count - and the toll - began to stack up against Hornets. Repeated sets of six in Hornets 10 metre area put the defence under extreme pressure - but good scrambling ensured the line held. Obviously, what was needed was another intervention -and sure enough, the sin-binning of Jon Roper for, supposedly, holding down was sufficient for Doncaster to make the pressure count.

Quick tries from Grix - and free yards courtesy of Mr Laughton - gave Doncaster momentum. And with Roper back on the field, he sent off Gareth Price for swinging a boot. I didn't see it - but I'm sure the video will settle matters one way or another.

Pushed into playing the last quarter a man short - and defending relentlessly on their own line - the ask was too great for Hornets as late tries from Solomon, Greenwood and Lee allowed Doncaster to salvage respectability.

At the hooter, he crowd reaction to Mr Laughton was one of the most extreme I've seen since Fred Lindop got a slap at the Athletic Grounds - the stewards forced to hold back some.. er... very annoyed people.

But with good reason? Once again Hornets had been hammered in the penalty count - this time 7-13. Were we really almost 200% worse than Doncaster?

Despite Hally's talks with controller of referees Stuart Cummings, we're still getting pasted. Hally said, "I was so disappointed with what was going on on the field - and the crowd was of the same opinion. We very rarely win a penalty count - so perhaps we need to become more disciplined."

Magnanimous, really, as Hornets fans once again left the game talking about the man in the middle as opposed to the quality of their side's victory.