Here are your Round 11 of Championship Rugby match highlights from when your Doncaster Knights travelled south, to Ealing Trailfinders.

 

Here is your Starting XV Doncaster Knights as they make the trip down south for Round 11 of Championship Rugby against Ealing Trailfinders.

 

TEAM NEWS

The knights travel to 2^nd in the table Ealing Trailfinders this weekend searching for back-to-back wins for the first time since Round 6. The Knights narrowly missed out on an away victory the last time both teams met in the Premiership cup back in September, where they fell short of 2 points.

With a strong team put out for Bedford Blues last weekend, the Knights make 1 change within the forwards, George Roberts comes in for Tom Doughty.

We have hooker ‘John Stewart’ joining us on loan from Bath, to cover Tom Doughty due to injury, as Cameron Terry isn’t eligible to play against his parent club, whilst on loan with us.

Joe Margetts makes his 50^th appearance for the club this weekend.

You can follow all the live action on X (Twitter) at @doncasterknight.

 

Starting XV

1  Harrison Courtney

2  George Roberts

3  Corrie Barrett

4  Evan Mintern

5  Harry Wilson

6  Rhys Tait

7  Archie Smeaton

8  Jack Digby ©

9  Ollie Fox

10  Billy McBryde

11  Maliq Holden

12  Russell Bennett

13  Joe Margetts

14  George Simpson

15  Jack Metcalf

 

Replacements

16  John Stewart

17  Conor Davidson

18  Lewis Thiede

19  Ehize Ehizode

20  Charlie Beckett

21  Adam Hopkinson

22  Alex Dolly

23  Joe Bedlow

Club partner, PS Construction were awarded the Best Residential Extension at last weekend’s LABC Grand Finals in London. 

A LinkedIn post demonstrated their recent success, “We’re still buzzing from the incredible time we had at the LABC Awards Dinner on Friday. The evening was filled with excitement, laughter, and unforgettable moments, and it went on until late into the night!

We can’t express how much we enjoyed celebrating our Grand Final National Winner status with all of you. The energy and camaraderie were truly inspiring.

A heartfelt thank you to our amazing team, partners, and everyone who made this night so special. Here’s to many more memorable celebrations in the future!”

You can find out more about PS Construction here, https://psconstruction.co.uk/ 

Match Report | Championship Rugby, Round Ten | Doncaster Knights 26 – 20 Bedford Blues

 

Doncaster Knights 26 Bedford Blues 20 by Guy Williams.

Imagery by John Ashton @ickledot

 

Doncaster’s post-match celebrations in the home dressing room at Castle Park shook the entire stadium; rightly so, because after successive league defeats, this victory during a close and entertaining contest showed that the Knights were returning to form.

 

They were somewhat fortunate to win their sixth match in nine because in the last-minute Doncaster could well have lost. Bedford winger, Dean Adamson, with the line begging to be crossed and with no defender in sight, inexplicably dropped the ball, so the Knights survived, and given the inaccurate form of the Blues’ goal-kicker, Will Maisey, the fly half might have missed the conversion.

 

He’d already failed to convert any of Bedford’s four tries, so arguably Doncaster were again lucky, but compared with the displays against Caldy and Ampthill, they were aggressive, creative and sharper all-round.

 

Scoring chances were missed,though.However,their dominant pack, setting up tries for full back Jack Metcalf, prop Harrison Courtney and winger Maliq Holden were highly competitive enabling Doncaster to retain their fourth position in the Championship.

 

This much needed win was timed perfectly because they now begin preparations for Saturday’s clash away at Ealing Trailfinders, one of their hardest challenges of the league campaign. Doncaster will be without hooker Tom Doughty who suffered a nasty blow to the head against Bedford and regular fly half, Sam Olver, out for three months, following an injury against Ampthill.

 

In Olver’s place, Doncaster’s place-kicking role was taken over against Bedford by centre Russell Bennett who joined the squad after the financial collapse of Jersey Reds, winners of the Championship last season.

 

Bennett’s skilful goal kicking, a conversion and three significant penalties on 15, 40 and 60 minutes, played a major contribution towards Doncaster’s success.

 

“The pleasing aspect was that we were really physical against Bedford and dominated them up front in attack and defence. We killed them with our physicality and stayed in the game.

 

“ We held on to the ball for long phases and took our chances. I’ve settled in nicely, have been welcomed and am loving it here.Morale is high. That’s not been an issue.

 

“ Obviously, we don’t know what’s going on with the future of the Championship, but I’m a lot happier now after the turbulence at Jersey Reds,” said Bennett.

 

His boss, Director of Rugby Steve Boden, was much happier too.

 

“ I’m very proud of their efforts, but we let Bedford off the hook and should have scored 40 points given our field positions and dominance. We need to be better.”

 

Doncaster Knights: Metcalf, Simpson, Margetts, Bennett, Holden, McBryde, Fox(Dolly 73), Courtney(Davidson 52), Doughty( Terry 4), Barrett(Thiede 62), Wilson, Mintern(Ehizode 58),Smeaton(Hopkinson 71), Tait, Digby.

 

Bedford Blues:Le Bourgeios, French, Elliott(Worley 52), Matavesi(Grimoldby 66), Adamson, Maisey,Day(Lennon 48), Jack(Conway 49), Fish(Heffernan 54), O’Connor(Wright 28), Lockett, Woolford(Williams 54), Frost, Howard, King(Curran 49).

 

Referee: Joe James.

 

Here are your Championship Rugby Round 10, match Highlights of Doncaster Knights Vs. Bedford Blues.

Castle park, 20th January 2024

 

Performance much better after a tough couple of weeks. The players came out fighting, which I loved and full credit must go to them and the leadership group. Bedford are a top side in this league, we rode our luck at the end but we felt we left a lot of opportunities out there ourselves and it’s something we will need to get right for next week, our red zone conversion was only at 28% and we need it to be up at 50% consistently & that should see us putting more scoreboard pressure on the opposition when we are on top. Really exciting though because we can and will get a lot better. – Joe Ford, Head Coach

A few words on this week’s team selection as the Knights take on Bedford Blues in Round 10 of the RFU Championship.

“We are excited to see the new half back partnership of Billy McBryde and Ollie Fox play together. Russell Bennett back into the team at 12, which shows our positive intent of wanting to move the ball around. Jack Metcalf starts at fullback after doing well off the bench last week. Fyn Brown took a knock and not quite fit for this week. Sam Olver has had a scan and will require an operation unfortunately, so he’s going to be out for some time. Archie Smeaton, Rhys Tait and Jack Digby together in the back row will give the team loads of energy.”

STARTING XV

1 Harrison Courtney

2 Tom Doughty

3 Corrie Barrett

4 Harry Wilson

5 Evan Mintern

6 Archie Smeaton

7 Rhys Tait

8 Jack Digby

9 Ollie Fox

10 Billy McBryde

11 Maliq Holden

12 Russ Bennett

13 Joe Margetts

14 George Simpson

15 Jack Metcalf

 

REPLACEMENTS

16 Cam Terry

17 Conor Davidson

18 Lewis Thiede

19 Ehize Ehizode

20 Adam Hopkinson

21 George Roberts

22 Alex Dolly

23 Joe Bedlow

Here are your match highlights from Championship Rugby Round 9, Doncaster Knights Vs. Ampthill Rugby

Here is your Doncaster Knights Starting XV for Round 9 of Championship Rugby Vs. Ampthill Rugby

Saturday 13th January

2:30pm Kick Off

Castle Park

 

STARTING XV

1. CONOR DAVIDSON
2. TOM DOUGHTY
3. CORRIE BARRETT
4. FYN BROWN
5. EHIZE EHIZODE
6. HARRY WILSON
7. RHYS TAIT
8. JACK DIGBY (CC)
9. ALEX DOLLY
10. SAM OLVER (CC)
11. MALIQ HOLDEN
12. JOE BEDLOW
13. JOE MARGETS
14. GEORGE SIMPSON
15. BILLY MCBRYDE

REPLACEMENTS

16. GEORGE ROBERTS
17. HARRISON COURTNEY
18. LEWIS THIEDE
19. EVAN MINTERN
20. ADAM HOPKINSON
21. ARCHIE SMEATON
22. OLLIE FOX
23. JACK METCALF

 

 

A few words on this weeks team choice from Head-Coach, Joe Ford

Sam Olver comes back into the team starting at 10 in his 100th game for the club.

Two changes in the forwards with Rhys Tait returning at 7 having fully recovered from his ankle injury & Tom Doughty starting at hooker.

Joe Bedlow replaces an injured Connor Edwards at centre alongside Joe Margetts, with the back 3 staying the same from last time out v Caldy.

 

INJURIES

A Statement from the Championship Clubs

We emphasised in our last statement our principled objections to a franchise or selection-based Tier 2. Rather than seek to discuss these objections and others, the RFU has chosen to threaten us with effective relegation to the National Leagues for non-compliance, while ignoring the unresolved questions on governance, commercial strategy, promotion/relegation, player welfare and the player development pathway. We have offered alternative proposals on the way forward to the Board without response.

The current RFU plan to present any recommendation to Council is extremely premature, until such fundamental issues are addressed and consensus reached so that the game can move forward via agreement rather than ultimatum. We would appeal to Council not to approve any plans for Tier 2 until our proposals are discussed in detail and there is full clarity on these fundamental issues.

We have discussed this matter with Sport England because without further clarity on funding and governance, it will be impossible to ensure that Championship clubs are able to repay their Covid loans. We believe they share our concerns.

We believe that no club can place value on a process involving expressions of interest when there is so little necessary detail.

However, we can only act for ourselves: consequently the 11 current Championship clubs request that the Board sets an urgent date to hear in full our amended proposals – proposals which share all of the RFU’s objectives, albeit reached via different routes which we consider achievable, pragmatic and full of vision for the future growth of the game. 

Introducing…

ALOISI ‘IMI’ VEREIMI 

 

Aloisi ‘Imi’ Vereimi (Aloisio Vereimi Namuatabu Qorowale) is a 28-year-old Fijian rugby player standing at 1.86 m tall (6 ft 1 in) and weighing in at 105 kg (16 st 7.49 lb; 231.49 lb)

Having leaving the British Army in the summer of 2022, where he served as a rifleman in the 2^nd Battalion, Vereimi signed with Newcastle Falcons as a winger and made his debut away at Leicester Tigers.

 

Here’s what Steve Boden, Director or Rugby at Doncaster Knights had to say about the signing…

“Obviously with Harry Davey being out with a shoulder injury and Connor Edwards also out with a shoulder injury, AJ Cant is still out with a return to play, were a little bit light in the back line. Imi is a guy we have worked with in the past, he fit in really well with our boys and the club and I think he really enjoyed his time when he came on loan, so it was an obvious opportunity to work together again and hopefully he can get in some rugby in the near future.”

 

You can catch Imi and the rest of the Doncaster Knights this Saturday 13^th January at Castle Park, where they play Ampthill in Round 9 of the Championship rugby campaign.

 

Buy your tickets to the match RIGHT HERE 

Match Day Tickets