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Doncaster prepared for hectic season end
Doncaster Knights will have to play four games in 10 days to complete their regular season programmme, yet head coach Brett Davey remains undaunted.
The postponement of their trip to London Welsh for the second successive Saturday has left them with the near-impossible task, starting this Wednesday away at Nottingham.
Doncaster would then play South Yorkshire rivals Rotherham Titans at Castle Park next Saturday, followed by Welsh away – a fixture that would have to be played during the day because there are no floodlights at Old Deer Park – the following Tuesday.
They then finish their season with another long trip, this time to leaders and promotion favourites Bristol on Friday, February 24.
The Knights are part-time and have one of the thinnest squads in the Championship.
Davey has safely negotiated them into the promotion play-offs in his first season in charge, and is not concerned that his bid to get them as high up in the top eight as possible will be affected by the recent cold snap.
“It’s not ideal but we do at least have experience of it from before,” said Davey.
“Two years ago we played nine games in 27 days when I was assistant to Lynn Howells.
“So we have that experience of knowing what to do in times of fixture congestion and I’m confident we’ll be able to manage that quite well. The task is trying to keep our squad as fresh as we possibly can for the play-offs.
“That’s not to say I’ll have a team for the midweek games and a separate one for the weekend games.
“We’ll pick our strongest side each game, making just one or two changes each time.”
There is a blank weekend before the play-offs are due to start on the weekend of March 9-11.
The Rugby Football Union would hope to not have to use that to enable clubs to go into the play-offs fresher, but another weekend of adverse weather conditions could force their hand.
“Hopefully the RFU see that they might have to push it into that spare week,” added Davey.
“But I’m confident we can deal with this pretty well if they don’t.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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