Doncaster Knights 12 Plymouth Allbion 3: Doncaster prevail to maintain impressive run of form

Plymouth went into the break ahead 3-0 thanks to a James Love penalty but Doncaster won the game in the second half thanks to tries from Andy Boyde and David McIlwaine.

Plymouth opened the scoring in the eigth minute as Love punished the Doncaster pack for an infringement at the scrum 30 metres out.

With the constant drizzle coming down things were difficult for both sides and Plymouth enjoyed the better start. It wasn’t until the 20th minute that the Knights made it into the Plymouth 22 after a neat kick from fly-half Mike Whitehead pegged the visitors back in their half.

The Knights began to up their game as the half was coming to an end, firstly with prop Royce Burke-Flynn finding himself on the right wing and showing some good pace and strength as he powered over winger Tyson Lewis as if he wasn’t there.

In the closing minutes from a lineout the Knights pack, led by No 8 Chris Planchant, marched 20 metres down field and after Chris Hallam got the ball out wide it looked like they might be in for a try but Love covered at full-back.

Two minutes into the second Whitehead missed a penalty. Doncaster’s pack enjoyed themselves after the break and after forcing three penalties in a row out of their opponents.

The resulting lineout was won and after driving into the Plymouth 22, Boyde broke free to score in the left corner, but Whitehead was unable to convert from out wide.

The decisive try came just past the hour mark as Hallam got quick ball from the base of a scrum on the 10-metre line, and switched to the right for full-back McIlwaine to finish off a sweeping move in the corner, this time Whitehead added the conversion. Plymouth could have had a try as Keni Fisilau broke through a couple of a tackles but knocked on.

Doncaster Knights: McIlwaine, Flockhart, Luke, Gidlow, Keating (Toft 76), Whitehead, Hallam (Audis 76); Davies (Corsar 64), Boden, Burke-Flynn (Brown 64), Challinor (Kenworthy 56), Parsons, Boyde (Makaafi 56), Farivarz (Noone 66), Planchant.

Plymouth Albion: Love (Nowell 55), McGrath, Armitage, Fisilau, Lewis, Slade, Cushion (Farnham 70), Morton, Evans, Dugard (Hopkins 52), Collier, Lockley (Lee 28), Hocking, Sprangle (Harris 74), Tyas. Unused replacements: C Mitchell, D McGregor.

Referee: R Campell.