Leeds Carnegie 16 Doncaster Knights 30: McIlwaine’s perfect tribute earns Knights local spoils

The 21-year-old Irishman lost his grandfather in the week but after a quiet word with head coach Davey, in which he was told it would be understood if he chose not to play in an intense Yorkshire derby, the former Ulster player elected to play and repaid his boss and honoured his grandfather with a stunning individual try to win the match.

“It’s very rare that I single players out but I thought he was absolutely magnificent,” said Davey, who watched as McIlwaine kicked a 57-metre penalty to give Doncaster a half-time lead they scarcely deserved and then scored the decisive try after a much-improved second-half performance from the Knights.

“He hasn’t been with us all week. He came to my house Tuesday night and I told him how ever long he needed was fine with us but he turned around and said his grandfather would have wanted him to play.

“So I’m dedicating that win to the family of David McIlwaine.

“He did the simple things right and for his try, he’s a big boy to stop.”

Leeds could not fell the Irish giant as he transformed a 16-16 game with a try of sheer defiance as he carried three men across the line with him.

It earned Doncaster their third successive win and a score by Mike Whitehead in the final minutes made it five four-try performances in succession for Davey’s free-scoring Knights.

By his own admission, they are still learning what style they want to adopt, but they are doing so with more punch than Leeds, for whom defeat was their fourth in five games.

“In many aspects it’s as well as we’ve played,” said Leeds head coach Diccon Edwards, who was unhappy at the role of referee Andrew Taylorson for the high tackle on Joe Barker that led to Doncaster’s fourth score, which deprived the hosts a losing bonus point.

“We dominated the first half and to turn around behind was unfair. Unforced errors allowed them to score points and that was really the story of the second half.

“But the passages of play we put together in the first half showed exactly what we are capable of, and gives us something to build on. But the errors are killing us. They are young players, they have to learn quickly.”

Leeds, with a point to prove following their evisceration at Cornish Pirates and showing a raft of changes including Barker in at fly-half for his fellow 21-year-old Joe Ford, began purposefully.

Though lucky to still be level after Tom Luke missed a kickable penalty on six minutes, they showed flashes of brilliance in the backs, mainly through their dual-registered Sale full-back Tommy Bell.

At just 18, the regular fly-half was standing-in at No 15 and showed a flash of speed that troubled Doncaster and a cuteness in the offload that dug him out of tricky situations and kept the play alive.

His fellow Sale team-mate Iain Thornley, was equally lively, as Leeds sought to gain an offensive foothold.

But it was the hard yards of the forwards that created uncertainty in the Doncaster pack for Jacob Rowan to exploit, the flanker picking up loose turnover ball and trundling home from 22 metres.

Bell converted to give Leeds – notoriously slow starters this season – the early initiative.

Doncaster, prompted into urgency, responded instantly. After winning a penalty in midfield and finding touch, Steve Boden’s lineout was recycled from right to left and when the backs had failed to puncture Leeds’s defence, the forwards took charge, prop Tom Davies the man emerging with the ball after burrowing through.

Again, Luke was off target with the kick, and he was made to pay when Bell kicked two penalties to reassert Leeds’s authority.

Doncaster, though, were not going meekly and caught Leeds flat-footed with their second try.

Scrum-half Chris Hallam took a quick-tap penalty 30 metres out and raced along the Leeds line, feeding Chris Planchant who made a beeline towards the corner.

He found Dougie Flockhart flirting with the touchline and his 10-metre dash was rewarded with the sterling support play of Hallam who followed up to score.

Again Luke missed but the Knights had issued a warning. And they had the lead at the half after Luke finally found his range with a simple penalty for offside, that was followed up by that monstrous 57-metre effort from McIlwaine that cleared the cross bar with yards to spare.

Bell levelled with a 50m effort of his own and Leeds continued to make the positive running, this time lock Richard Beck and prop Phil Swainston going deep into Doncaster territory.

Davey’s men then spent five minutes camped on the Leeds tryline but the green shirts held firm before forcing the visitors into a handling error that eased the pressure.

Doncaster spent the best part of 20 minutes in Leeds territory but left with nothing.

Yet their experience told on the flagging Leeds men, for when the Knights found themselves under pressure again, they opened Leeds up.

Replacement forward Michael Noone was the man that made the break and his offload found McIlwaine. The Irishman still had plenty to do, but he jinked one way and then the other before targeting the posts and not stopping, despite the best efforts of Bell, Ollie Richards and Tom Denton.

Whitehead’s conversion gave Doncaster a seven-point lead and the former Rotherham fly-half added the bonus-point try after supporting a superb break from Michael Keating, though, the way in which Barker was stopped in his tracks after carrying the ball out of his own half, should have resulted in a penalty.

Davey said: “They stuck at it for 80 minutes. If you keep on knocking at the door, sooner or later it’s going to break down and that was the case. It was important to keep on doing what we were doing.

“Even though we’ve won I was disappointed with our performance. There were lots of elements we won’t be happy with.”

Leeds Carnegie: Bell, Richards, Thornley (Ford 51), Blackett, Lucock, Barker, Shaw; Denman (Lockwood 59), Titterrell (Freer 61), Swainston (Young 68), Beck, Hohneck (Denton 48), Rowan, Walker, Burrows (White 79). Unused replacement: Rieder.

Doncaster Knights: McIlwaine, Flockhart, Goss (Whitehead 59), Gidlow, Keating, Luke, Hallam; Davies, Boden, Brown (Burke-Flynn 79), Challinor, Kenworthy (Parsons 51), Makaafi, Farivarz (Bradford 65), Planchant (Noone 71). Unused replacements: Brown, Audis.

Referee: A Taylorson (RFU).