'Time to cash in our Premiership audit': Doncaster Knights chief plotting promotion push in 2025/26

Knights have won their last four games in the Championship and two prior to that in the Premiership Cup, but given how indifferently they started the league season, that is still only good enough for sixth place, 26 points behind leaders Ealing Trailfinders.

That Ealing and second-placed Bedford are two of the teams they have beaten recently - indeed, Doncaster are the only team to have beaten Ealing and have done so twice - it has only gone to prove that they have the talent and ability to match the best in the second tier.

And that is what president and co-benefactor Steve Lloyd is banking on in 2025-26.

His coaching duo of the vastly experienced Sir Ian McGeechan as director of rugby and developing head coach Joe Ford are in place for next year, as is the staff that work underneath them

There are no plans for there to be a vast overhaul of the playing squad, as has been the case in recent years, with the large majority expected to return to Castle Park. The first of those was announced on Monday, Thom Smith, the 25-year-old back row forward who started his career at Leicester and has experience of winning the Championship with Jersey Reds before they went bust.

Off the pitch, Doncaster continue to be run prudently, and having passed the audit for Premiership promotion for a third year running despite not being in a position to use it this campaign, Lloyd is eager for them to cash it in next year.

“Having done all the hard work to pass the audit, it would be nice to use it,” said Lloyd, whose club’s Castle Park ground ticks the box of a rising scale in attendance from 5,000 in year one that the RFU requires for Premiership entry.

“I’m comfortable and I’m understanding of where we are this season and why that is, but next year we’re ready to fight.

“That’s our goal, to go up how it should be done, without massive debts piling up, to do it affordably.”

Lloyd has long been a vocal supporter of the Championship cause and when the RFU opened the second tier up to new clubs to apply for it next season, he was quick to warn clubs like Worcester and Wasps who had designs on being reimagined in the division after their collapse, that they must do so with all debts cleared.

Worcester have been accepted into the Championship for next season along with Richmond, who have just pipped Rotherham Titans to the National One title.

Lloyd, though, is content to concentrate on matters at his own club.

“Six games left and it’s very simple for me - I want the maximum 30 points,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

“We’ve beaten the big ones; Ealing twice, Bedford last Saturday, so keep at it.

“We’re well on with retention, we’ve got some good recruits coming in and we’re working on relationships with other clubs.

“It’s going to be business as usual next season and we will go flat out for it.”

On the club’s form in the first half of the season, which saw them win just five of their opening 12 games, Lloyd said: “People might wonder: ‘so what happened at the start of the season then’?

“Well, a couple of seasons ago we came second because we sneaked some games at the end, this season we didn’t sneak those games at the beginning and in actual fact we threw points away, so we are where we probably deserve to be given we didn’t hit the ground running.

“But now we are doing. We’re playing a fast, action-packed game which is how rugby should be played but it takes time to get everybody on board and integrate new faces.

“We’re scoring lots of points and you don’t score points without a ball in your hand.

“We don’t kick it anywhere near as much now, we try and run the opposition off their feet.

“I would hazard a guess that we are one of the fittest sides in the league.”