DONCASTER Knights boss Brett Davey says he is glad of the fact that the Championship strugglers have no game this weekend.
With a Championship XV taking on the touring New Zealand Maori All Blacks at Castle Park on Saturday, Knights are not in action again until a trip to second-placed Nottingham on Friday week.
Which means that those players to have picked up knocks in Friday’s 22-21 defeat at home to third-placed Bedford Blues will have longer to recover.
The club’s second defeat in six days left them rooted to the foot of the table with just one win and a draw in nine league games.
Knights had looked set to continue their recent dominance over the Blues at Castle Park when leading 21-10 deep into the final quarter.
But two converted tries, the second of which was scored in the dying seconds of stoppage time, dashed their hopes.
“It was cruel, but that’s sport,” Davey told The Star.
“We had to change the game plan when it started to rain just before the start and the first half we played into a bit of a breeze, so I was quite pleased to come in 7-3 ahead at half-time.
“The second half instruction was to put the ball behind them and make them play from deep and we probably executed the game-plan for 76 minutes of the match until they scored their second try, which I wasn’t happy about.”
Knights, who had prop Tom Davies sin-binned a minute from the end, were penned in their own 22 for most of the ten minutes of stoppage time but they defended heroically.
Said Davey: “I don’t think the players deserved to lose, they worked incredibly hard. We’ve just got learn to shut up games.
Davey said Knights could take heart from running such a good side close, he countered: “We want to start winning some rugby matches. I think we are in an incredibly false position.”
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