Darren Fearn has praised the mentality of his Doncaster Knights players for not getting down on their luck as a key reason behind them kickstarting their season last Friday night.

The Knights have endured a difficult opening to the Champ Rugby season, one in which they have made no secret of their ambitions to challenge for promotion to the Prem - should that be available come the end of the season.

Having won only three of their opening 10 games, they found themselves seven points down with two men lost to injury at lowly Richmond when they dug in and sparked a comeback that resulted in a 35-7 victory.

“That mentality is something we’ve gone after all season,” said Fearn. “We stuck to our game plan, there were a couple of big moments where we stood up defensively and went and put our game on them.

Doncaster's head coach Darren Fearn. (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)

placeholder image — Doncaster's head coach Darren Fearn. (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)

“We’d also lost Aidan Cross, one of the wings, and the Roko (Semesa Rokoduguni), two of our big players, plus we had No 9 play fly-half in Cameron Kelemeti; so there was a lot that had gone against us.

“But the leadership team, and the squad as a whole, did well to stay in it, stick to the processes and come away with a win.”

Fearn reserved special praise for the adaptability of Kelemeti, the 26-year-old Fijian who previously played for Newcastle and only signed at the start of December. “Cam hasn’t played fly-half since he was 17, but I had to ask him last week can you play at No 10 and he did it and we’ve gone and scored five tries,” said Fearn, whose side sit 10th, eight points off the play-offs.

“So lads are stepping up. If we continue to bring that mentality to the table, we’ll be okay.”