19Cornish Pirates
14Doncaster Knights
Doncaster Knights just missed out on a come back as they faced Cornish Pirates in round nine of the Championship.
The first half was a game of constant set piece as windy conditions caused both teams to make errors. It was a tight and well contested battle in the first 40, with both sides working extremely hard in defence.
Despite Doncaster having most the first half possession, Cornish Pirates managed to steal one try before the break through Arthur Relton. They stretched the ball out wide, which allowed Matt McNab to make a break, before popping back inside to Relton. Bruce Houston added the extras,
The Knights displayed some really good phases in attack but conditions and handling errors meant the half time score was 7-0.
Pirates opened the scores in the second half as their forwards drove over the line following a series of pick and go’s. The conversion was missed.
They gained another in quick succession as, again, Cornish moved the ball between the backs and a pop back inside to their scrum half saw him go over between the sticks. They added the extras making it 19-0.
Doncaster work their way up the field and captain, Ben Murphy showed his strength to dive over the line. Bennett added the extras and the Knights lit up.
Bennett made a break into space and his offload hit a Pirates player, but Arthur Green swept up the ball and drew in the final defender. Green then shipped it out to Maliq Holden, who finished under the posts. Bennett added the extra two.
Full time score, Pirates 19-14 Knights.
Team Lineups
Andrew Turner 1 Will Young
George Roberts 2 Harry Hocking
Joe Jones 3 Alfie Petch
Ben Murphy (C) 4 Matt Cannon
Adam Hopkinson 5 Lewis Pearson
Thom Smith 6 Martin Maloney
Rhys Tait 7 Will Gibson
Morgan Strong 8 Hugh Bokenham
Alex Dolly 9 Daniel Hiscocks
Russell Bennett 10 Bruce Houston
Maliq Holden 11 Matthew McNab
Connor Edwards 12 Harry Yates
Zach Kerr 13 Charlie McCaig
Semesa Rokoduguni 14 Arthur Relton
Telusa Veainu 15 Will Trewin
Replacements
Fred Davies 16 Sol Moody
Logovi'i Mulipola 17 Oisin Michel
Lewis Thiede 18 Craig Williams
Josh Williams 19 Josh King
Arthur Green 20 Tomiwa Agbongbon
Archie Smeaton 21 Cameron Jones
Ollie Fox 22 Iwan Jenkins
Will Parry 23 Iwan Price-Thomas
