Doncaster Knights v Caldy RFC in Premiership Cup

Last week the Knights played extremely well to beat Sale Sharks away at their Salford Community Stadium, 19-20.

The statistic that lead to the win was that both teams scored two conversions but Sale scored three tries to the Knights’ two. However, the Knights scored two penalty kicks and Sale didn’t score any.

Caldy lost 73-12 to an eleven-try-scoring Falcons at Newcastle’s Kingston Park. Caldy managed to dross the whitewash twice. Their tries were scored by winger Will Robinson and hooker Jack Ellam.

Quite tellingly the Falcons didn’t miss any tackles but Caldy only missed two. Caldy had a 100% success rate of their linouts and only missed a couple of tackles even against the dominant Falcons. This gave Caldy a 92% tackle success rate. The Falcon’s was !00%. Each team won a turnover. The set piece of rucks and mauls success rates were very similar to each other. Caldy only conceded four penalties to the Falcon’s one, so again similar rates of discipline. The dominant stats were the Falcons had 76% of the territory from 57% of possession, which led to their eleven tries. This indicates that Caldy were on the ’back foot’ for three quarters of the game and their possession was mainly in their own half. In summary the game wasn’t as one-sided as the score suggests but the game seems to have played mainly in the Caldy half, so the Falcons had the territory and scored. This sounds like a thrashing; what I’m trying to suggest is that Caldy had their little wins, such as in the set piece and kicking more meters from hand but it’s try-scoring that matters and this is where Caldy were dominated.

The other Championship Cup match sees Sale Sharks host Newcastle Falcons at their Salford Community Stadium.

The Falcons are the decisive winners of Pool A, after not losing a game with one Pool game to play. Second-placed Sale are seven league points below the Falcons, so can’t overtake them if they beat them. Third-placed Doncaster Knights are five league points below Sale, with an extra win to their name. I believe that the Knights would finish second in Pool A if they beat Caldy and scored four tries or more plus Sale lose to Newcastle without finishing within seven points.

It would then be possible for the Knights to reach the Quarter Finals as best runner-up but that would be dependant on Leicester Tigers, Coventry, Ealing Trailfinders, Bristol and Gloucester all losing, i.e. highly unlikely.