Tony Miller's new look squad secured the John Sheridan Cup with a 26-12 victory over Championship Club Hunslet Hawks.

Tries from Dean Colton, Tom Hodson, Jamie Crowther, Mick Butterfield and Grant Edwards plus three Lee Waterman goals ensured victory in front of an enthusiastic but disappointing crowd of 271.

The Dons controlled much of the first 40 minutes and led 16-6 at the break. The only blot on an impressive first half being the sin-binning of centre Waterman for persistant dissent in the build up to and after the Hawks only first half try.

The Leeds outfit had players sin-binned in each half and coach Barry Eaton (a former Don in the 90's) looks to have his work cut out to produce a 'winning' side based on today's performance.

Two further tries extended the Dons lead to 26-6 before a consolation try 6 minutes from the hooter for the Hawks finally got them into double figures.

Dons:
Mick Butterfield
Dean Colton
Jamie Crowther
Lee Waterman
Tom Hodson
Grant Edwards
Craig Fawcett
Kyle Bibb
Jack Ely
Craig Robinson
Dean O'Loughlin
Mike Kelly
Mike Emmett

Francis Welsh
Andy Townend
Nathan Powley
Carl Hughes
Kyle Sampson
Stewart Sanderson

Did anyone see the actual cup? Was wondering if it was the shield the clubs two fanzines bought some time ago

Impressed today in our first run out . Bibb was the stand out player for me .

I thought we looked great today, both going forward near their try line and defending our own line (which we had plenty of practice at despite the scoreline).
We could have easily dropped the intensity down and conceded a bunch of tries which would have won it for Hunslet in the second half. But we were resolute, which was very pleasing.

One or two players stood out for me:-
Hodson ....pace to burn.
No 16 ... very darty and nippy. It was Welsh on the team sheet, but I was told it was Nathan Powley.
Grant Edwards was great.
Basically nobody had a bad game.

PS To say we have invested in forwards, I didn't see much difference to last season in terms of hole punching.
It was the smaller mobile guys who were doing the good stuff for us, just like last year.

Mark Castle to come etc, so we will see.

I had a very enjoyable day out. Roll on a tougher test against the Eagles.

Where are the supporters???
Very disappointing given the Cooke factor.

I agree, however I thought may be they didn't turn up because they were disappointed he wasn't going to play? thats my hope anyway - here's to a bigger gate for next week anyway - that performance definately deserved it!

Really Impressed today.

Too many good points to put as it wud take me forever so just a few

1. Fantastic defence especially on our own line
2. Everybody played their hearts out
3. we played some good entertaining (risky at times) stuff
4. Tom Hodson What a find

Last but not least for a friendly I thought the Referee had a gr8 game, was consistent with his decisions on both sides the 2 grapple tackles = 2 sin Bins and the constant back chat from Lee Waterman = Sin Bin.

Tom Hodson was my MOM.

Working next Sunday so will miss the Seagulls game but I am confident we can give them a run for their money

COYD

All good stuff from the Dons yesterday, admittedly that was a pretty lousy Hunslet side, but we played what was in front of us and did it well, and in an organised fashion. Very happy with the defence, including the way we closed them down when they did make breaks.

Very impressed with Hodson, looks to give us something we didn't have last year. Waterman looked a handful, although looks like he may have a few disciplinary issues to iron out. Edwards did a great job as always.

Throw Kes and Cas into that team, and try and find an experienced goal kicking stand off from somewhere and that is a very encouraging side

*we need a beard stroking smiley*

Very impressed with the players in the Hunslet game - well done lads!

Tom Hodson looks very nippy - just what we need on the wing.

I agree with the other comments about Lee Waterman perhaps having to curb his temper somewhat. He does looks a useful player.

Let's hope Hunslet are actually better than we think they are, and it was our performance that stopped them from playing. I suspect next week's encounter will be a sterner test and tell us more about where we're at.

The only negative for me was the ridiculous white shirt numbers on a yellow background! Please sort this one for next week!!

it all bodes well for the season ahead impressed with the all the players that took part and we got some usefull players still to play ones tat really took my eye were bibb hodgson and emmet that lad would run through a brick wall for the team, waterman could not understand why penalty was awarded against him just prior to them scoring first try neither could we was, right in front of us that was only mistake the ref made not making it clear why he gave the pen he had agood game otherwise.