Knights

Round 9 sees the Knights visit Plymouth Albion at Brickfields. The Knights are in 7th place and Albion are 10th. The Knights have won 3 of their 8 games and Plymouth have won 2. The most visible reason the Knights hold such better league position is the dogged spirit they have shown hanging tough in games to ensure bonus points.

Last weekend the Knights beat Birmingham/Solihull again picking up the bonus point to ensure the maximum 5. The Albion travelled to London to face Esher for a game with a result that neither side will be completely happy with, a 10 all draw that benefited neither outfit.

Plymouth’s try scoring is fairly evenly spread throughout the game, home or away although they show a tendency to start and finish a little stronger than the mid-40 minutes. Albion backs have scored over 70% of their tries; in fact their forwards are the lowest try scorers in the Championship so far.

Plymouth’s defence is strength, despite being 3 places below the Knights, they have only leaked 10 points more. Try leakage at home is a particular strength, they’ve only conceded about 20% of their tries in Plymouth. They’ve leaked nearly 65% of them in the second half.

Conversely forwards have scored lass than a third of the tries scored against Plymouth, this fairly low percentage of tries scoring against by forwards is about 10% better than the Knights and ranks high in the Championship. Albion have conceded the second highest number of tries down their wings. Try leakage is fairly even elsewhere and they haven’t conceded any penalty tries yet. Therefore weaker areas have historically been down the flanks with the core of the forwards remaining a strength.

In Plymouth Albion’s draw last week against Esher, Fionn McLaughlin (centre) scored their try and fly half Alex Davies must rue the 3 penalty kicks that he missed (Esher missed 2).
McLoughlin is their top try scorer and Davies is the 8th best kicker in the Championship.

Plymouth Albion competes with London Welsh for the top place in the indiscipline league, with 7 yellow cards. The Knights are at the other end together with the Bees with 3 yellows and have therefore spent half a match more than Albion with a full complement of players.

Elsewhere this weekend:

Rotherham Titans (9th) who are 1 point above the Knights welcome Esher (8th, 4 points below the Knights) and Bristol (9th, 4 points below the Knights) travel to London to face the 2nd-placed Exiles, London Welsh who are in a rich vein of form.