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In Round 16 of the Championship, the Knights travel to Nottingham. Doncaster’s Round 15 was postponed from Saturday 4th December but was played against Worcester Warriors on Wednesday 15th December in the evening. As the winter continues to disrupt various teams while it is Round 16 for the Knights it remains only Round 14 for Nottingham.

Snow at Christmas is great for Christmas cards and carols but no good for sport. Although people are pleased to see the snow initially, I think we would all agree it’s time to let 30 players battle each other on a pitch at the weekends.

Tues 21st December Nottingham were meant to play Esher in a rearranged fixture that has had to be rearranged again, to the 18th January. This means that Nottingham are three points below the Knights with two games in hand. Nottingham’s two games in hand are against seventh-placed Rotherham Titans (also played 13 games, won six, lost seven but are eight league points behind Nottingham) and 11th-placed Esher.

Even though Nottingham have two games in hand over most of the teams in the Championship, their fly half James Arlidge is the Championship’s top kicker, averaging 13 of Nottingham’s 31 points per game. Tristan Roberts is third averaging over nine points/game (Knights average 26 points/game). The main reason for the disparity is that Arlidge has kicked 12 more penalty points than Roberts and remarkably that this is with two games in hand, he kicks an average of three penalties/game, so the Knights must try not to concede kickable penalties.

This indicates predominantly the forwards winning these kickable penalties by strong play forcing opposition indiscretions. Nottingham scoring the third most penalty kick points in the Championship is demonstrated by Nottingham scoring 21 points from seven penalty kicks the last time the teams met at Castle Park .

The last time the sides met on second of October at Castle Park, the Knights won a close-fought, abrasive encounter 46 – 42 with a last minute (or seconds) try. In fact, three tries in the last seven minutes, two of them in injury time, saw Doncaster Knights run out deserved winners in their local derby with Nottingham in spite of being behind by 42 points to 27 when the late try fest started. Who can forget Dougie Flockhart’s run in a perfect line to cut inside his opposite number and race 55 metres to score his side’s winning try with the last play of the game. Knights fans were elated and Nottingham fans were despondant after Nottingham were in control for a lot of the game. Nottingham scored 3 tries courtesy of the big Tongan Sione Kalamafoni (No.8), Andrew Savage (centre) and Tom Armes (flanker). This brace of back row trys scoring illustrates why Nottingham forwards have scored the third most forward try’s in the Championship (second on average/game).

For the Knights it is a tale of woe on the injury front with back row players such as Andy Boyde, a player who grows in stature every season at Castle Park, out for the foreseeable future. Ed Jackson, reportedly out with a broken leg, will be out for 4-5 weeks with ligament problems while talismanic Glen Kenworthy recovering from a broken neck. The silver lining to an injury filled cloud is the possible return of vice captain Neil Cochrane for the game at Meadow Lane.