There's no denying that this was a bit of a curate's egg of a game: good in parts, but bitterly frustrating in others.

Its also fair to say that Doncaster provide a decent template of how good you need to be to compete convincingly at this level - though a crowd of only 580 only underlines clubs' concerns about building decent teams cost-effectively for a serious tilt at NL2 honours.

But despite Doncaster's serious intetions ut was Hornets that struck first after just three minutes. A bobbling kick exposed Donny' dodgy full-back and Todd O'Brien snaffled the knock-on to touch down by the posts. Sam Butterworth added the two.

There then came a period where the two teams jostled for superiority: Doncaster pounding the Hornets defence; Hornets standing resolute and clearing their lines with a series of good forward drives and clearing kicks.

Doncaster pressure finally told on 14 minutes when Briggs stepped through a static line defence. He tagged on the two - and a fortuitous penalty - to give the home side a slender lead.

Doncaster stretched the lead on 30 minutes with a jammy try out of nothing. A pass intended for centre Morton went to ground and with Hornets defence gathered around the intended recipient, Reittie swept up the loose ball to plonk it by the flag to give the Dons a 12-6 half time lead.

Hornets started the second half much like the first. Good approach play took Hornets to the home line and Paul Alcock crashed onto a short ball to score. Sam Butterworth tied the scores and the game looked set to be a tight one.

But Doncaster kicked up a gear and - whilst working manfully - Hornets struggled to respond. Firstly, a backpeddaling defence stood off Gale who ran through to score. Then, with the penalty meter clicking over at a ridiculously one-sided rate (final penalty count 15 to 5 in Donny's favour), referee Brooke dispatched Janan Billings to the sin-bin on the hour mark.

Doncaster capitalised, clinically. Almost immediately, Gale took advantage of two players caught at acting half and exploited a huge hole to score; then Green scored quite possibly the softest try of his career as he shrugged off flapping tackles; then Briggs showed good acceleration to scoot in. Hornets gone from competitive to dead in the water in the space of ten minutes at 34-12.

But the visitors sucked in for a big finish. On 73 minutes, Martin Ainscough unzipped the home defence and, despite stumbling at the full-back, slipped the ball to the supporting Jono Muir for a well taken try; but the scent of a bonus point evaporated when Green repeated his show and go trick to score at the death and leave Hornets on the wrong end of an apparent hiding.

But it wasn't all bad. Bar the period where Doncaster ruthlessly exploited their one-man advantage, this was a pretty even matched game in which Hornets contributed much to be positive about.

There's lots of hard-work and unglamorous graft in Darren Shaw's side and that's a good enough foundation to build a bit of confidence on. There's no doubt that Doncaster are a decent side, but Hornets were only 10% off the pace in most areas of the game.

A narrow enough margin, but one that racks up and bites you over the 80 minutes. With a bit of confidence, consistency and persistence, it's not an unsurmountable gap. And - for all that - I still feel that we may be closer to achieving our season's target than Doncaster are to theirs.