Doncaster coach Richard Horne is demanding improvement from his side when they visit Whitehaven on Sunday.

Horne wasn’t happy with a fair bit of what he saw during the 38-16 Challenge Cup win over Coventry Bears at the weekend. He was quick to admit that the margin of victory flattered his side.

He said: “We need to be better as our overall performance wasn’t good enough. The standards we have set ourselves just weren’t there – particularly in the first half.

“I thought we finished the last 20 really well when we did things we had spoken about, such as upping the tempo of the game, and we scored some good tries.

“Credit to Coventry, though. I thought they played well - particularly in the first 20 minutes - and fully deserved their 8-0 lead. They’ve got some boys who can carry the ball and off-load and players with pace who can cause you problems if you gift them possession and good field positions.

“I also thought they did a really good job in the rucks though I felt the referee might have given us a few more penalties than he did for players laying on. We got in front and led 12-8 at half time, which we probably didn’t deserve, but that’s rugby league some times.”

Both of Horne’s close-season signing Brandon Douglas and Matty Beharrell capped good performances with a brace of tries.

“Brandon’s a big man and he’s hard to handle near the line,” said Horne. “Other teams have players like him and it’s good to have one in ours. Matty tried to get things going in the first half (setting up a try for Brandon) and he also scored our last two tries,” said the Doncaster coach.

Doncaster visit Whitehaven as joint-leaders with two wins from their three games. One of the victories was 20-10 against Workington Town, while they lost at home to Hunslet.