How Joe Ford has turned London Scottish's Harlequins deal to Doncaster Knights' advantage

Knights beat the Championship leaders 20-18 at Castle Park last week to inflict only the second defeat on the pacesetters all season. Ealing’s first defeat also came at the hands of Doncaster in early October but a week later, Knights fell flat, losing 12-0 at home to London Scottish.

“This one at the weekend is the biggest test we’ve got this season because we’ve been here before,” said Ford

“At the beginning we beat Ealing away and had Scottish at home and lost 12-0.

“It’s a brilliant challenge for us and we’ve spent a lot of time this week focusing on our attitude.”

What made the Scottish defeat all the more galling was their opponents had been bolstered 48 hours before the game by a raft of players from Premiership side Harlequins, who Scottish have a dual-registration deal with.

It means from one week to the next, teams like Doncaster don’t know what they’re planning for when facing the Exiles - which this week Ford has used to his team’s advantage.

“We don’t know who we’re coming up against because they could throw 10 ‘Quins’ lads in with the rules as they are,” he said.

“You look at the team they put out last week to the one we played and there’s around 13 changes - so it’s really difficult. You just don’t know where Quins are with their planning, internationals coming back in and the knock-on effect it has on Scottish.

“But it doesn’t matter, it’s about ourselves this week and our attitude to the game.

“If we can get to the levels we were last Saturday against Ealing then we’re a very good team.

“It helps us really because we’ve just got to focus on ourselves.”