REPORT | North Wales Crusaders 12 Dons 26

The Dons moved to within 80 minutes of the Betfred League One play-off final with an impressive 26-12 win at North Wales Crusaders. 

Richard Horne’s side scored four first half tries including a brace from Jason Tali to book a date with Swinton Lions in next weekends’ qualifying semi-final.  

It took them just nine minutes to open the scoring at the Eirias Stadium with Greg Burns making a run from dummy-half and finding Ben Johnston with an inside pass, with the half-back side stepping the Crusaders defence to score under the posts. Connor Robinson converted to make it 0-6.  

Sustained pressure from the Dons continued to hurt the Crusaders with a fumbled kick bouncing nicely for Jason Tali who dived on to the ball to double the Dons’ lead via another conversion from Robinson.

Tali then completed his brace and in the process climbed above current chief executive Carl Hall into second in the all-time list having scored 99 times in blue and gold.

The final try of the half was the standout score as Tom Halliday caught a penalty on the full and that saw the ball spread to Travis Corion who raced 80 metres to extend the lead at the interval to 0-20.

The second half was a tight affair with the Crusaders managing to score twice as the game headed into the latter stages. Rob Massam was first to score in the corner after the home side found numbers on the edge, before Tommy Johnson crashed over to reduce the gap to eight points.

The Dons though were always in control and sealed the win with four minutes remaining. Captain Sam Smeaton powered over the line from short range to secure a crucial victory on the road.