London Scottish 20 Doncaster Knight 25 : Toft dives in to open Doncaster account as Knights hold on for an important victory

Ben Toft sealed a crucial win for Doncaster Knights with his first try since joining in the summer.

Doncaster made a strong start but Dougie Flockhart’s effort was ruled out due to a knock-on by Michael Keating.

Scottish opened with a penalty from captain and outside-half James Brown but this was cancelled out by three points from the boot of David McIlwaine.

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Matt Challinor struck from intense Doncaster forward domination, spinning into the corner for his first try of the season and McIlwaine converted.

Knights went further ahead through newcomer Fred Burdon, who ran in unopposed between the posts for McIlwaine to convert.

Knights flanker Latu Makaafi was yellow-carded for cynically killing the ball from the base of the scrum and Stephen Pape crossed for an unconverted try after several scrums.

Scottish head coach Simon Amor made a change at fly-half for the second half, bringing on Daniel Mugford, who in the reverse fixture at Castle Park earlier this season provided the Knights with persistent problems, but he missed a simple penalty.

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James Kellard then ran in from 25 metres to score for Scottish but the conversion was missed.

Knights burst into the Scottish 22 and McIlwaine converted another straight-forward penalty.

Blindside flanker Kellard powered through for a second try and the conversion by Mugford levelled the scores.

Knights came up with the answers as Toft dived over by the corner flag. McIlwaine’s conversion dropped agonisingly short and this set up an action-packed last 10 minutes as Scottish attacked but Knights held firm.

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Doncaster Knights: Flockhart, Toft, Goss, Burdon, Keating, McIlwaine, Hallam, Davies (Corsar 55-61), Boden (J. Yeandle 61), Burke-Flynn, Challinor, Parsons, Makaafi (Boyde 61), Farivarz, Planchant. Replacements: Davey, Noone, Bradford, Bateman.

London Scottish: Grove, Gosio, MacDougall (Heeks 61), Hayter, Westren, Brown (Mugford 40), Lalanne, Clarke, Kwasnicki (Standfield 20), Thiede (Liffchak 65), Pape (Rudzki 65), Brown, Kellard, Lonergan, Lipp. Replacements: Calder, Sole.

Referee: P Knowles.

Bedford Blues 24 Rotherham Titans 23

An excellent contest in which Rotherham deserved more than a losing bonus point at Goldington Road ended in controversy with Titans coach Andre Bester declaring he would be complaining to the RFU about the performance of the referee, Matthew Carley, and one of the touch judges.

Earlier, during the second half, Bester was ordered to watch from the stand by Mr Carley after he had criticised loudly a touch judge who had allegedly failed to notice a high tackle on Rotherham forward Semisi Taulava, but had previously reported the Titans for a similar offence.

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Bester, who also complained that the high penalty count against Rotherham had contributed to the narrowest of defeats, was supported by a senior Clifton Lane figure.

The dispute did not spoil the entertainment value of a highly competitive game which Rotherham should have won on 77 minutes but, surprisingly, fly-half Garry Law, the Championship’s top points’ scorer, missed the penalty.

Bedford, leading 24-23, were fortunate to be reprieved; Rotherham departed regretting they had conceded three tries, two from rolling mauls.

Changing their style, Rotherham produced some of their best and most fluent rugby of the campaign to score outstanding tries by Law and flanker Robin Copeland in a performance that surprised Bedford, who were expecting their opponents to rely on forwards’ power only.

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Instead, Rotherham’s backs, enjoying the wide pitch, attacked frequently, and having contributed significantly by scoring a try, two conversions and three penalties (18 points), it was uncharacteristic that Law failed to take the opportunity to win the match.

Bedford: Pritchard, Schmidt (Staff 28), Burke, Vass, Bassett, Sharp, Veennendaal, Walsh (Steenkamp 50), Locke, Boulton (Seal 59), Howard, Tomes (Johnson 5), Rae, Harding, Tupai (Barrell 73).

Rotherham Titans: Foden, Tellwright, McCall, Nonu (Hodgson 74), Monahan, Law, Williams, Cahill, Baines, O’Donnell, Maddison, Griffiths (Taulava 40, Kirwan 74),Copeland,Dougall,Dickinson.

Referee: M Carley.

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