Lack of depth at Knights is exposed in defeat

Tom Luke stepped into the fly-half role when Whitehead was replaced just before half-time and had a day to forget – as did most of his team-mates – missing tackles and kicks at goal in a generally sloppy display.

The lack of depth to Doncaster’s squad, particular in the pivotal position at No 10, means that Luke, a talented runner on his day, will probably have to slot in at first receiver from the start in next Saturday’s Championship game against Esher.

The only alternative option available to Knights’ 39-year-old director of rugby Brett Davey is himself. He started the British & Irish Cup tie at Nottingham last month, but is reluctant to dust off his boots again unless absolutely necessary.

He said: “That’s not really a viable option but if it had to happen I’d help out obviously.

“This is one of the problems we have with our squad. It is a small squad and we have kind of ridden our luck with injuries a bit. I don’t mind it catching up with us now as long as it doesn’t catch up with us during the play-offs.”

Doncaster looked anything but play-off contenders as they slipped to their first defeat at home in six matches against a Nottingham side that barely had to break sweat to return home with the spoils.

A 30-metre rolling maul, and Zak Farivarz’s subsequent eighth-minute try from a line-out drive close to the Nottingham line, was as good as it got for the Knights during a first half which the Green & Whites went on to dominate.

Referee Ian Tempest awarded eight penalties against the home side – five of them coming within the range of full-back Keiran Hallett who, assisted by the breeze, landed four of his attempts at goal – two of them impressively coming from halfway. Nottingham also scored two first-half tries, Alex Lewington breaking through a weak tackle and passing to fellow wing Marco Mama for the first touchdown.

The second similarly arrived in gift-wrapped fashion after David McIlwaine had the ball stripped from his grasp underneath his own posts by Nottingham fly-half James Arlidge, who strolled over for a morale-sapping score just before the break.

Trailing by 19 points at the interval it was imperative Doncaster got the first score of the second half, as they had done in the first.

But Nottingham came out after the break with more intent and Mama’s break deep into Knights territory set up the platform for another penalty, which Hallett knocked over with ease to open up a 22-point gap.

Two tries in the space of six minutes momentarily raised hopes of a stirring comeback similar to last season when, in the corresponding fixture, the Knights scored 19 unanswered points in the final 10 minutes to win an amazing game 46-42.

Doncaster did not have it in them, though, to produce anything quite so remarkable and they will take little consolation from the fact that Michael Keating’s score – shortly after Latu Makaafi’s had crashed over – was the pick of the six tries scored on a crisp and sunny autumnal afternoon that was perfect for running rugby.

Indeed, there could be no excuse for the litany of unforced errors and poor decision-making from both sides which meant the spectacle fell some way short of last season’s edge-of-the-seat drama.

It was entirely appropriate then that the game-clinching try came from a pick-and-go from visiting hooker Nottingham hooker Joe Duffey, while Doncaster were down to 14 men after Keating had been yellow-carded for going in at the side of a ruck.

The game finished three tries apiece but with Hallett’s five penalties and a conversion ultimately proving the difference.

Doncaster used three kickers – Whitehead, McIlwaine and Luke, all of them unsuccessful in front of goal.

But Davey refused to blame the fact his side failed on four occasions to take points off the tee as the reason for their defeat.

He said: “It’s a worry when they (kicks at goal) are not going over and that is magnified by the fact that we lost the game.

“It hasn’t helped that we haven’t had anyone doing the kicking on a regular basis because we’ve been changing our 10s around.

“But kicking at goal was just one of numerous things that went wrong today – it is not what cost us the game.

“We lost the game because we didn’t turn up and perform well, which is particularly frustrating when you’re playing at home. It is nothing that we can’t eradicate though.

“We’ll take a long, hard look at ourselves and hopefully come back a better side for it.”

Doncaster Knights: D McIlwaine; D Flockhart, T Luke, PJ Gidlow, M Keating; M Whitehead (Goss 37), C Hallam; A Brown (Davies, 57), J Yeandle (Boden, 63), R Burke-Flynn (Brown, 63), M Challinor Makaafi, 52), D Parsons, A Boyde, Z Farivarz (Noone, 46), C Planchant. Unused replacement: L Audis.

Nottingham: K Hallett; E Mama, A Erinle, J P Socino, A Lewington; J Arlidge, F Barnham; M Parr, J Duffey (Stevens, 75), B Prescott (Shields, 63), C Hammond (Morley, 67), N Rouse, S Kalamafoni (Eggleshaw, 75), R de Carpentier, A Shaw. Unused replacements: M Holford, J Cobden, J Munro.

Referee: I Tempest (RFU).