Doncaster Knights: Clive Griffiths reacts to defeat at London Irish

Doncaster Knights failed to upset the form book when going down 49-12 against title favourites London Irish in their Championship clash at the Madejski Stadium.

Director of rugby Clive Griffiths had no complaints about the result but he admitted he was disappointed to see his charges come away empty-handed.

“We had the chances to come away with a try bonus point which was something we had targeted in the build-up,” he said.

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“Ollie Steadman spoilt his good run into the Irish 22 when it was still 0-0 when trying to get away a speculative back door pass to Curtis Wilson which was intercepted by one of their players who then broke up field.

“That was a massive turning point because it would have given us a massive boost to have scored first.

“We try to encourage players to offload the ball but some of them have to learn when to do it. The idea of the offload is to cause chaos in the opposition ranks, not in ours.

“Curtis also had a chance to score at the end from a Kurt Morath kick over the line. It was harder to miss it than score.”

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Griffiths was pleased to start the second quarter at 0-0 and felt that Knights were still in the game at the break despite conceding a third try just before the interval which left them trailing 21-7.

But he conceded that Knights, though they kept going for the full 80 minutes, were very much second best in the second half.

“They just kept coming and all that defending takes its toll,” he said.

“When you also take into account the strike power they have out wide you see why they are such a formidable side and destined to bounce straight back to the Premiership.”