Doncaster Knights: Coach reflects on a positive end to 2019
“It was a good result to end the year and take us forward,” said director of rugby Clive Griffiths, reflecting on their final outing of 2019.
“To score six tries was pleasing - and the first one was worth the admission price alone - but we should have had at least a couple more and should have won by a bigger margin than we did.
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Hide Ad“We had the chance of a third try from a catch and drive and had we scored then the floodgates could have opened.
“As it was, we scored a close-range try but then gifted them a score from the resulting kick-off on the stroke of half-time.
“We were dominant early on in the second half and scored a couple more tries but then lost our grip for a while and let them in for a couple of tries, which we were disappointed about, but credit them for keeping going when it was 35-5.
“As I say, we should have won more easily than we did but we’d have settled for that score line and five points before the game.”
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Hide AdKnights had to change the selected starting XV when former Carnegie second-rower Matt Smith, who had trained with the squad all week after more than a month on the sidelines, pulled out with a recurrence of his neck injury.
“We had to switch Rory Pitman from No 8, which disrupted our line-out at times, and change the back-row,” added the Welshman.