Doncaster Knights 51 London Welsh 3
EDF ENERGY NATIONAL TROPHY ROUND 5
Knights cruise into quarter final draw as Talei stakes his claim for place against Leeds
A strangely low intensity affair, this one, with Welsh clearly more intent on league survival and Doncaster with one eye on next Saturday’s critical clash with Leeds Tykes. Clive Griffiths rested the half back pairing of Mark Woodrow and Ben Jones to give them time to recover from war wounds, and kept John Cannon on the bench too. The bench was to prove the source of most of the second half inspiration, as it happened!
The Knights began strongly and after several attacks were repelled, Ben Gollings hit a sweet drop goal to get the score board moving. He had a penalty chance a couple of minutes later from in front of the posts, but slid his kick wide. When he was then almost decapitated by his opposite number, Dylan Pugh – who was relieved only to be shown yellow – Gollings recovered to add a penalty; and from there the Knights went on to win at a stroll, scoring seven tries in the process. The first came with Welsh still a man short: fast ball off an attacking scrum saw Spencer Davey skipping tackles on the blind side to score on the left. Next up was a penalty try after five minutes of intense pressure in the Welsh red zone when after one scrum collapse, a second was stood up as the Welsh front row buckled under a huge Knights’ surge and the referee immediately ran under the posts. Welsh did get their only points of the day on the half hour when Sam Ulph kicked a 40 metre penalty after obstruction off a ruck but it was the only sniff of points they had all half. Just on the break, with another man advantage after hooker James Campbell was sin binned, Gollings darted through the visitors’ defence off scrum ball whilst advantage was being played to make the line, and his own conversion stretched the half time score to 25-3.
Fijian Netani Talei appeared for Jason Forster after the break to play at Eight, and made a huge impact on the game. First in defence, as Welsh managed a sustained period of pressure for the opening 15 minutes that gave the Knights’ defense a strenuous work out which they seemed to appreciate and put bodies on the line to deny the visitors even one score; and then increasingly in attack as he carried for good yardages, offloaded skillfully, and with the last move scored a well worked try off a powerfully driven maul after he himself had carried the ball 50 metres to set up the position along with Russell Earnshaw.
Another replacement, Dan Storey also caught the eye. The young scrum half appeared on the left wing as Van Vuuren was rested and immediately made his mark. Talei had carried the ball into Welsh territory, moved it left and Storey burst on to it at pace to beat the desperate defence to the line. He did so again shortly after as Talei and Ben Phillips combined out of home territory to set John Cannon away. He cleverly drew the last defender and passed to Storey whose pace again saw him make the corner. Gollings converted both to give them the full value they deserved. Before then, though, had come arguably the best try of the game when good handling up the left set Anthony Carter stepping into space and his neat scoring pass sent Cannon into the corner.
It was a comfortable and comprehensive win that takes the Knights into the quarter final draw. Before that, though, the small matter of hosting the Tykes next Saturday (2.30pm) when a record crowd is anticipated. The Knights will approach that one in confident mood after this workout and with key rested players ready to return to action.
Knights: Carter, Van Vuuren (Storey 66), Hunt (Cannon 55), Davey, Davies W, Gollings, Scully, Bunting (Davies T 66), Boden (Phillips 54), Tau (Barretto 48), Kenworthy (Cook D 60), Gross, Forster (Talei 40), Grainger, Earnshaw.
Welsh: Ulph (Shaw 61), Sampson, Taylor, Hayward (Hopkin 56), Arasa, Pugh (Cholewa 73), Fury, Marsters, Campbell, Durant (Williams 27), Ayling (Burke 52), Collier, Cox, Etheridge (McNamee 49), Griffith.
Referee: D Richards (RFU) |
