Doncaster Knights winning race for promotion off the pitch, but are miles off it where it matters most
At what stage do they start to panic at Doncaster Knights - if at all?
A season that was supposed to be about challenging for promotion and cashing in the chip of RFU approval for Premiership elevation, has been anything but.
The team led by director of rugby Sir Ian McGeechan and head coach Darren Fearn languishes in 11th place out of 14 teams in the Champ.
They have won just four of 12 games and have not produced back-to-back victories all season.
Every time they produce a performance that suggests a corner has been turned, they follow it up with another dud the following game. They beat Worcester - the phoenix club risen from the ashes of the Premiership car crash - then lost the following week to Bedford, a pattern that was repeated with a win over Coventry but defeat to Hartpury, victory against Richmond two weeks ago, a loss to London Scottish eight days later.
They face a Caldy team at Castle Park today that has nothing like the resources Doncaster has, yet sit two places and two points better off on the standings.
Doncaster started just as inconsistently last season before going on an unbeaten 11-game tear from around this time of the season that saw them rise to finishing position of third.
That got them nowhere last term because Ealing Trailfinders had already runaway with the league title, just as they threaten to do this term.
But this year Doncaster have a little more hope. The bells and whistles rebrand of the Champ for this season came with the return of end-of-season play-offs for the top six and the loose promise that there could even be promotion at the end of it.
Ironically for a team struggling on the pitch, off it Doncaster are ship-shape for the Prem, another division rebranded but no easier to get into. It is only Yorkshire’s leading club and Ealing who have applied to meet the Rugby Football Union’s minimum standards criteria, and Doncaster have passed it four years in row, Ealing - agonisingly for them and infuriatingly for those who want to keep the door to progress open - keep failing the test.
The season started with the prospect of a two-legged promotion-relegation decider with the bottom club in the Prem, but that is now in doubt with the Prem lobby wanting a closed shop and another vote to come to decide what the 2026/27 top flight looks like.
Leave rugby politics for another day at Castle Park. Their co-benefactor Steve Lloyd has openly stated he wants his team to be the ones in position to ask the questions of promotion.
Right now, they need to get it right on the pitch, starting against Caldy today.