Ill-Organised Knights Suffer Heavy Defeat at Coventry

Doncaster Knights yesterday suffered a tough 47-7 defeat to Coventry at Butts Park Arena in their return to league action following the opening rounds of Cup competition.

The Knights best work, displaying the most intent, came in the opening quarter but the execution faltered as they remained scoreless while Coventry were able to make the most of a penalty for not releasing as Pat Pellegrini split the uprights for the afternoon’s opening points to the hosts.

Coventry’s first try came as Will Rigg was fed the ball off the back of a lineout in the Knights 22 and, having broken Harry Davey’s tackle, the centre dove over for the score.

As the half hour approached, Coventry got their second of the day. Adam Peters broke into the Knights 22 with John Kelly getting penalised trying to get over the resultant ruck. Will Chudley tapped it quickly, releasing Pellegrini for the corner run-in.

Minutes before half time, the Knights got themselves on the board for what would prove to be their lone score of the day. Having had their first driving maul called held-up over the line, the Donny men went to the set piece deep in the corner once more and on a second time of asking, Sam Daly was able to dot the ball down for the score which Sam Olver dutifully converted.

Five minutes into the second half and Coventry added to their lead. Playing into the Knights half from Donny having lost possession in contact, the hosts’ backs combined well with Louis Brown completing the move with a leap over the line in the far corner. Pellegrini secured his first conversion of the day to add the extras.

The Knights were reduced in man-power on 55 minutes played as Harry Davey was shown a yellow card – sent to the sin bin for a deliberate knock-on as he had mistimed his tackle attempt.

It took just 4 minutes for Coventry to make the most of their man advantage. The hosts had Donny scrambling to set their defensive line having lost the lineout throw. Quickly making their way up field through the phases, Pellegrini received a pass which allowed him to finish the score in the far corner.

Just after the hour mark, Coventry began to pull away. From a driving maul, the opposition moved off the back, gaining a not rolling away advantage in the centre. Shifting the ball quickly to Will Talbot-Davies who had the overlap on the wing, the winger was able to secure the try.

On 73 minutes, Pellegrini was halted just inside the Donny 22 as Davey got fingertips to his laces. However, having re-set from that original run, Coventry worked the faces to allow the fly-half to find another gap and despite Davey’s desperate attempts, he couldn’t catch the try scorer.

The floodgates opened in the closing minutes as Coventry secured a further two tries. Their first produced by Pellegrini finding a soft shoulder in the Knights defence to break and feed Lane for a simple under the posts finish, and the second from James Martin tearing down the touch-line from the restart for a final dot down.

An extremely hard to take result for the Knights squad as miscommunication, ill-organisation and errors hampered them throughout. The squad will have to re-assess and coming together to move forward with a positive mind-set before welcoming London Scottish to Castle Park next Saturday.

Match Statistics

Coventry XV | 15 Louis Brown; 14 Will Talbot-Davies, 13 Will Rigg, 12 Ollie Betteridge, 11 James Martin; 10 Pat Pellegrini, 9 Will Chudley; 1 Toby Trinder, 2 Suva Ma’Asi, 3 Harry Seward, 4 James Tyas, 5 Adam Peters, 6 Tom Dodd, 7 Josh Bainbridge, 8 Fred Betteridge.

Replacements | 16 Jordon Poole, 17 Ollie Andrews, 18 Jake Bridges, 19 Senitiki Nayalo, 20 Tom Ball, 21 Will Lane, 22 Lucas Titherington, 23 Louis James.

Tries: Rigg, Pellegrini 3, Brown, Talbot-Davies, Lane, Martin

Cons: Pellegrini 2

Pens: Pellegrini

Knights XV | 15 Billy McBryde; 14 Maliq Holden, 13 Joe Margetts, 12 Connor Edwards, 11 Harry Davey; 10 Sam Olver, 9 Alex Dolly; 1 Ben Carlile, 2 George Roberts, 3 Jake Armstrong, 4 Ehize Ehizode, 5 Ben Murphy, 6 Thom Smith, 7 Sam Daly, 8 John Kelly.

Replacements | 16 Will Holling, 17 Kai Owen, 18 Mak Wilson, 19 Theo Vukasinovic, 20 Jared Cardew, 21 Joe Green, 22 Tyson Lewis, 23 Martin Sigren.

Tries: Daly

Cons: Olver 

Yellow card: Harry Davey

Referee: Jack Makepeace

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