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.

“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.”

Knights 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.