Knights ride into third with tight win over Hartpury
DONCASTER Knights climbed into third spot after beating Hartpury College at Castle Park.
In avenging a 29-27 defeat in the first ever meeting at the Gillman’s Ground back in October, Knights posted a third successive league win for the first time this season.
They scored eight tries and played some excellent rugby – but they will need to defend better in what promises to be a tough run-in.
“We knew they could play going into the game and we’d worked hard in training trying to stop their attack,” said ex-Hartpury hooker Ben Hunter who bagged a brace for Knights.
“Probably both sides attacked better than they defended but I imagine it was a good game to watch.”
Hartpury fly-half Jacob Perry said: “We are disappointed because we fancied our chances. We were quick out of the blocks and came back well in the second half to get within five points but overall it wasn’t good enough.”
Hartpury took less than two minutes to open the scoring. Full-back Mike Wilcox hit the line at pace after the visitors moved the ball infield from a driving lineout and raced in unopposed from 20m for a try converted by fly-half Jacob Perry.
Knights opened their account on six minutes when Joe Sprotson palmed down Ben Hunter’s lineout throw and the hooker squeezed in at the corner.
They opened up a 12-7 lead on 13 minutes when wing Tyson Lewis popped up in midfield just outside the Hartpury 22 and raced towards the line before sending No.8 Josh Tyrell over from close range. Charlie Foley converted.
The visitors drew level when scrum-half Harry Cochrane raced in from 30m and they regained the leadwhen centre Luke Eves touched down.
But they were reduced to 14 men for the rest of the half when flanker Will Safe was sin-binned and Knights took full advantage to add two further tries to carve out a 24-17 interval lead.
The first came when Foley did well to force a tryscoring pass out of the tackle to centre Andy Bulumakau close to the line. Bulumakau combined with wing Curtis Wilson down the right to create the
next try for skipper Michael Hills, who strolled through a huge gap close to the line.
Knights dominated the opening exchanges after the break and were rewarded with a second close-range try by Hunter. Foley added the touchline conversion to open up a 3117 lead.
No sooner had the cheers died down than a strong run down the right by Hartpury wing George Perkins set up a try for Steven Leonard.
But an unconverted try by Lewis saw Knights lead again 36-24 – but battling Hartbury, whose display will have won them a lot of friends at Castle Park, closed the gap to five points with a converted try by Darren Dawidiuk from a maul.
That was as good as it got for the visitors and Knights responded with further tries by lock Adam Batt and a brilliantly executed touchdown by fellow replacement Tom James following good work by Bulumuakau.
Hartpury had the final word with a fine try by centre Thomas Seabrook.