Bristol 12 Doncaster Knights 26: Knights off the mark in style

It had started ominously for Bristol as, following an attempted lineout drive, the ball was moved quickly to the right where an overlap gave winger Sean Marsden the chance to dive over in the corner.

From the restart, a sloppy pass was intercepted by Knights flanker Andy Boyde who raced over from 20 metres for a try that fly-half Tristan Roberts converted.

With the Knights dominating the scrums and the defence, such was the pressure that Bristol were under that they conceded three penalties in the space of 10 minutes all of which were goaled by Roberts.

After 27 minutes, Doncaster won a scrum five metres inside the Bristol half and scrum-half Chris Hallam scooped up the ball to race 50 metres to score between the posts to give Roberts an easy conversion.

Roberts added another penalty before the break to give Doncaster a surprisingly comfortable lead, which sparked Bristol into life straight after the interval when hooker Ollie Hayes was driven over from a five-metre lineout.

This try was converted by replacement fly half Adrian Jarvis and it was game on.

The once-mighty hosts threw everything at the Knights but their defence was up to the task.

Eventually the Knights lifted the pressure and they were unlucky not to score a couple of tries, once when hooker Steve Lawrie was adjudged to have received a forward pass and then when flanker Neil Cochrane was hauled down just short.

Lynn Howells said: "This result answers the justified criticism we received the previous weekend."