Doncaster Knights 52 Sedgley Tigers 17
Knights slay Tigers in style
The Knights, with centre John Cannon making a first start of the season and skipper Jason Forster declaring himself fit to start, totally overwhelmed their visitors for an hour, and had the bonus point in the bag as early as the 20th minute, before taking their feet off the gas, replacing key players and losing one to the sin bin. Sedgley then found space and a new lease of life to contest the last half hour and very nearly won themselves a try bonus point! It was a bizarre turnaround after arguably the best first half performance for many years at Castle Park.
Forster had his 14th try of the season on the board as early as the second minute when a penalty to the corner produced the trademark line out catch and driven maul for his score. Three minutes later the backs showed what they could do and fast hands sent winger Paul Bailey into the right corner for a score that had the purists purring. Forster scored another on the quarter hour when the Knights’ pack powerfully drove a maul over from 20 metres which again prompted the backs to show their skills with the try of the day. First Wes Davies made the drift break inside his half before slipping an inside ball to Donovan Van Vuuren on the fast angle – when his run was halted he offloaded to Cannon who cut deep into the Tigers’ ’22, with referee Phillips playing good advantage, before releasing full back Anthony Carter to score at the posts. At this point the Knights’ were swarming all over their hapless visitors. Bailey’s ankle injury brought ex Sheffield Eagles’ flier Rob Worrincy on for a further hour of his much needed Union education and he was quickly involved making ground before Forster claimed his hat trick after Russ Earnshaw had first come close and the referee again played excellent advantage. There then followed a five minute spell of Tigers’ pressure but their only scoring chance came when Tim Fourie burst out of the middle of a ruck to get one on one with Carter, whose head on tackle felled the big forward and caused him to spill the ball too. The Knights’ had time to rub more salt into the Tigers’ open wound when Ben Jones made an electric break off fast line out ball and the supporting Cannon fed to Earnshaw who galloped under the posts. Mark Woodrow had converted four of the six tries and at half time the Knights were 38-0 ahead and a cricket score, valuable to points differential, was looming.
There appeared no loss of focus from the half time break as the Knights’ lead was quickly extended when Woodrow scored a clever little cameo try of his own, chipping the defence to follow up with a great pick up off his toes and score; and after Worrincy’s pace had forced the Tigers to scramble loose ball into touch, the Knights’ pack once again administered the savage maul to drive Glen Kenworthy over for the score. Woodrow had converted both and the lead was now 52 points with still half an hour to play. With Forster, Jones and Woodrow off for well earned rests, the structure of the home side disappointingly came apart and when Worrincy rather foolishly impeded Chris Hall after he chipped over him, he saw yellow for ten minutes. His wing was where Jon Skurr popped up twice in quick succession to create an overlap and a brace of tries that visibly lifted the tired Tigers’ spirits, and when Worrincy returned he immediately found himself desperately chasing back a box kick that bounced awkwardly to allow Hall to hack on, chase, recover and score at the posts with four minutes left. Try as they might, the fourth try was never to come but Clive Griffiths will want to examine closely how three tries were conceded in 15 minutes when only three were conceded in the whole of November. But it had been an exhilarating first fifty minutes full of wonderful cohesion, pace and power which, if replicated for the visit of Plymouth Albion next Saturday, should produce a memorable top of the table encounter. Kick off will again be at the earlier time of 2pm.
Knights: A Carter, P Bailey (R Worrincy 19), W Davies, J Cannon, D van Vuuren, M Woodrow (J Benson 62), B Jones (D Scully 60), N Tau, S Boden (S Plevey 60), J Rawson, L Gross (D Cook 55), G Kenworthy, S Grainger, J Forster (O Cook 50), R Earnshaw.
Tigers: C Wilkinson (T Albinson 75), C Hall, C Briers, J Duffy (P Largan 52), I Voortman, P Jones, G Roberts, J Roddam (P Keys 26), G Evans, T Fourie, B Lloyd, A Newton (R Senior 52), J Ponton (D Livesey 67), J Skurr.
Referee: R Phillips (RFU) |
