Doncaster Rugby Club

With much the same side that beat Hemsworth the week previously,  the only change was Poskitt coming in at full back for Ben Gray. Hence, the home camp was confident and was looking to increase their league status with another repeat performance.

Kicking off into a strong wind and bright Autumnal sun the home side forwards took early dominance in the scrums and line out. However the down side was that there was an obvious lack of cohesion from the tight with balls being knocked on and a general forward ineptness to compound their tight dominance in the loose and many individuals opting to walk round the park rather than put in the hard yards.

Saying this Captian Longworth’s work rate shone and looked to make the break through with the posts beckoning to suffer the indignity of a tap tackle to halt his progress. The first twenty saw much of the same with the home side dominating but not penetrating when Dan Morris went down with a knock to the leg. The ensuing reshuffle meant Farley went to Number 8 with Oliver reverting to hooker. The result was from a following scrum Farley picked and evaded three tackles to open the Phoenix account with Stewart adding the conversion.

Hornsea then produced their best spell of the game advancing on the left and deep into home territory. Initially the Phoenix defence held and cleared for a line out. From an infringement from the line out the visitors took a quick tap and barged over for the equalizer making the half time score line 7-7 with coach Senior on quickly to lambaste his troops for a below par performance.

The overall performance of the second half did improve and with the advantage of the slope and the elements Phoenix looked untroubled and rarely had to come back to their half.

Hence, they added to their tally courtesy of two tries from Oliver both catch and drives from short out and probably the best try belonged to Poskitt after a forward/back combination to spin the ball wide and crash over in the right hand corner, with Stewart adding a further conversion from three attempts.

On the day this was not a performance to rave about however the points were secured and despite some worrying potential injuries nobody suffered any long term consequences despite Greenslade’s impressive dive and multiple rollover claiming he heard something crack whilst holding his hand to his brow like Scarlett ‘o’ Hara in ‘Gone with the Wind’

The club’s seconds enjoyed a much better performance at Garforth and were unlucky not to claim the two points going down 22-20 with scores from Elliot and Hughes.