Doncaster Knights 33 Bedford 12: Excellent Knights issue play-off warning

Doncaster began the day eighth to Bedford’s second, with the bottom four still within sight as the Knights peered into their rear-view mirrors.

But after an 80-minute performance comprising defiant defence, attacking verve and enormous character, they need only look ahead.

For with displays like this in the play-offs, Brett Davey’s Doncaster could ruffle quite a few feathers among the fancied clubs.

The semi-finals, which they agonisingly missed out on last year because they conceded a last minute-try to Bedford, appear within reach.

And from there, as the regular season has shown, anything could happen.

Doncaster may be part-timers now but there is a real all-for-one, one-for-all mentality within the squad.

That is embodied by the fact that they are reliant on two of their stars of the back division, Dougie Flockhart and Oli Goss, to conduct fitness training with their team-mates.

And they have a number of plkayers coming back into the fold from injury, most notably experienced fly-half Mike Whitehead.

Although as Davey pointed out afterwards, the Knights No 10 on Saturday, Tom Luke, has helped orchestrate each of Doncaster’s eight league victories from fly-half.

Visitors in the 1,200-strong Castle Park crowd would have had no clue that this was a team that had not scored a league try for three games, the way they counter-attacked in numbers in the first half, and swarmed the tryline to secure the bonus point in the second.

They defended stoutly in the first half, time and again repelling waves of attacks from Bedford with Michael Noone and Dominic Parsons particularly to the fore.

David McIlwaine gave them breathing space with two penalties and Bedford commendably opted to kick their opportunities to touch to try and force their way over the line, only to be met by a wall of blue shirts.

The enterprising rugby that Davey wants his side to play was then illustrated devastatingly by Fred Burdon, the inside centre, who cut a line to the left wing and sprinted ahead.

Bedford defenders trailed in his wake before he lofted a pass to Michael Keating to finish off the move.

Bedford needed some encouragement and got it from referee Terry Hall, who sin-binned Noone and Andy Boyde on the stroke of half-time.

Doncaster conceded 12 points while down to 13 men, Don Barrell barging over for the first try and Josh Bassett scoring the second, after a slick move.

But this was where Doncaster’s character came to the fore.

Davey revealed his side had felt let down by refereeing decisions in their recent indifferent run, and having seen their lead all-but wiped out by their vaunted opponents, another collapse was in the offing.

However, Doncaster dug deep and the turning point was a break from his own half by fly-half Luke, who alleviated the pressure on the outnumbered blue shirts and set up a penalty that McIlwaine scored.

The siege overcome, Doncaster were emboldened and aided by two yellow cards for Bedford players Brendan Burke and Philip Boulton, they eventually forced a penalty try.

If their second try relied on brute force, Doncaster’s third was sheer guile.

Noone sprinted down the right side and exchanged passes with Adam Kettle, back in the team after three months out.

When that attack came up just short, the ball was recycled quickly right to left from scrum-half Chris Hallam, into Luke, on to McIlwaine and then to Flockhart on the inside to finish.

A more forward-orientated move brought the bonus-point clinching try in the final moments for Boyde.

“The first try in particular is the kind of rugby we want to be playing,” said Davey.

“For the first half, it was a bit of de ja vu with the decisions, but we came through it and second half I thought we were class.

“The way the league is you need to be finding your rhythm towards the end of the season, and we’ve got some players coming back to help us.

“We’ve never had our first XV out all season so that bodes well for us.”

On how high he sees his team finishing in the regular season, Davey said: “I’m not setting any targets. There’s no set agenda. We’re just going to keep chipping away and see where we end up.

“We just want to keep on playing good rugby.

“We’ve already shown the way we played against Cornish Pirates earlier this season that there isn’t a side in this division that could have lived with us that day.

“We had a little bit of that this afternoon but we know as well as we played today we’re likely to turn in a poor performance on another day.

“It’s about getting consistency now from us for the final five games.

“We just want to keep working hard and enjoying our rugby.”

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Doncaster Knights: McIlwaine, Flockhart, Goss, Burdon, Keating (Toft 79), Luke (Heaney 79); Davies (Burke-Flynn 74), Boden (Yeandle 58), Brown, Challinor, Parsons, Boyde, Bradford (Kettle 58), Noone. Unused replacements: Kenworthy.

Bedford Blues: Pritchard, Vincent (Vass 40), Burke, Staff, Bassett, Lennard (Sharp 70), Veenendaal (Liebenberg 70); Steenkamp, Cochrane (Locke 74), Deal (Boulton 55), Howard, Pailor (Tomes 55), Johnson (Gillanders 59), Barrell, Tupei.

Referee: T Hall (RFU).