Doncaster Rugby Club

Yorkshire Silver Trophy

Doncaster Phoenix 27 Whitby 20

Phoenix saw their return to winning ways in an entertaining if not resounding performance to progress through to the third round of the Silver Trophy,

Inclusions from the week prior saw the return of Tim Elliot to fly half and Wes Malton into the back row adding to the South African contingent of the Roodt brothers.

It was from the offset that Tim Elliot showed the miss he was against West Leeds when he received a returning ball from the kick off to scamper fifty yards and almost out the supporting Watts under the posts only for the Whitby defence to keep the home side at bay.

However, it was Elliot to prove instrumental in the next attack to draw two defenders and release Burton to chage under the posts with Jasanowski converting.

Elliot then added to the score sheet himself two minutes late when he was in support on the left to clear free of the wing defence and scamper in thirty again with Jazanowski converting.

If Phoenix thought this was going to be a run away victory, they were soon to be proved wrong with the Whitby backs looking pacy and causing problems when they spread it wide. It was on such an attack that the full back received chipped over and the home defence and touched down in the corner with the fly half narrowly missing the conversion.

Whitby then further reduced the deficit again with the backs spinning wide and the fullback going over again to give a score line of 14-10.

Phoenix responded accordingly with another well worked backs try with Ryan Roodt collecting the ball twenty out and evading the cover defence with 100% Jazanowski knocking the points over. He further increase the lead with a penalty to take the score to 24-10.

However the visitors didn’t give and responded with another try in the backs to make the half time score 24-15.

The second half was evenly exchanged with Jasanowski adding a further penalty halfway through to keep the margin to two scores.

It was the visitors who had the final word when with five minutes remaining they again opted to spread the ball wide with their speedy winger sprinting in the left hand corner to come within one score of equalising. However phoenix held out and now progress through to the third round.

If the visitors had had their kicking boots on then this could have been a bit more tense fortunately with Jazz in fine form with the boot this was not to be.

There was also welcome news from Sheffield where the Phoenix seconds overcame Sheffield 3rds in a 32-19 victory at Abbeydale with scores from Brookfield, Fielding and Millar.