Doncaster Knights: Lloyd Hayes says week off gives team a chance to start afresh

Knights have a blank weekend coming up before they return to action on November 30 away at Jersey Reds in the Championship Cup.

“I thought that we battled hard and we fronted up well, but at the end of the day we were on the wrong end of a close scoreline again,” said Hayes.

With their only points coming from the boot of Sam Olver, Knights have scored just one try in their last four games.

But Hayes, who scored that try in the win over Bedford, argues the situation can quickly change.

“If we can start to get more good ball then I’m confident we’ll score more tries,” he said. “We’ve got the players in the backs who can finish and we’ve shown that we can play some good rugby. We just need that front-foot ball.

“We’ve had a lot of forwards missing this season and we’ve had to make changes virtually every week due to injuries and suspensions. We’ve never had a settled side.”

Like his teammates, Hayes is disappointed that Knights find themselves in the bottom three.

“We’ll certainly be looking to put more space between ourselves and (bottom club) Yorkshire Carnegie when we go there on December 22,” he said.

“But we’ve got three Championship Cup games coming up before then starting with the trip to Jersey, which is never an easy place to go. It’s been good to have had this week off and hopefully we’ll have some of the injured players back for that game and we’ll start to build some momentum before we return to league action.

“I feel like Charlie (Foley) and myself are starting to form a decent centre partnership in recent weeks.

“Obviously it was disappointing to lose Pete (Lucock) for the season following his knee injury at Jersey last month and he’ll be a big loss. He is a quality player and he was a great signing for us.”