Doncaster Knights claim dominant 68-31 victory over Bury St Edmunds in pre-season friendly.
23rd August 2024
Doncaster Knights showed an exciting performance against Bury St Edmunds. Despite Bury scoring the first try of the game, the Knights scored an almighty nine tries in the first 40 minutes.
Bury secured the first points when their outside centre placed a lovely cross field kick to one of the wingers. They also added the conversion.
However, the Knights answered back very quickly. Semesa Rokoduguni showed his experienced footwork up the wing, before offloading to Adam Hopkinson. Hopkinson carried over the line for a composed finish. Alex Dolly added the extras.
Moments later, the home team extended their lead as Zach Kerr showed fantastic skill with a grubber up the wing. Kerr collected comfortably and carried the ball over the line. Dolly successfully converted.
The forwards then spent a few phases carrying into contact around the 5m, before Archie Smeaton managed to stretch the ball over the line, mid-tackle. Dolly added another successful conversion.
Bury’s winger, George Loose breaks the Doncaster defence and ships the ball to full back, Gabe Jones. Jones dove over the whitewash to close the scores. Bury added the extras with the conversion.
The Knights soon reminded Castle Park who was in charge as Ben Chapman carried hard and hustled his way under the posts. Dolly added another two points.
Bury’s discipline caused them to give away seven points in the form of a penalty try with a deliberate knock on from their centre, Christian-Goss.
Chapman then claimed his second try for the Knights as he went over the line from the back of a strong driving maul. Dolly continued his clean form off the T with another successful conversion.
Smeaton impressed again with a second try. The flanker pushed his way through the gap in Bury’s defence and showed great pace to get over the line. Dolly converted again.
Zach Kerr scored another as he moved the ball swiftly with Sai Tobeyaweni to create the space for attack. Dolly narrowly missed.
Superstar Smeaton earns a hattrick as he showed great strength to carry over the line. Dolly added the extra two points for his final conversion of the game. This meant the half time score was 61-14.
In the second half, Bury showed moments of flare as their brilliant ball handling aided them to score three tries.
However, it was the home team that scored almost instantly after half time. Hooker Fred Davies replaced Ben Chapman at the break and quickly scored from a driving maul. Our guest player James Blackett slotted the conversion.
It was at this point in the game when Bury seemed to light up. Scrums switched to uncontested, which allowed the visitors more possession.
Bury’s Alex Earnshaw showed good pace and footwork to swerve the Knights, before offloading to his teammate to score. Bury’s conversion was unsuccessful.
Bury then worked their way back to the 5m line and their forwards got busy carrying the ball. After a few phases, their flanker Ewan Guy managed to squeeze his way over. Another unsuccessful conversion followed.
Doncaster opted to remain with 14 men, by choice, and Bury scored the final try of the game. The ball is moved nicely between the visitors’ centres before they gave the ball to a teammate to finish. Their final kick of the game was unsuccessful. Leaving the full-time score 68-31.
Despite the Knights scoring significantly less tries in the second half, there was some impressive stand out performances throughout.
Returning Knight, Thom Smith disrupted Bury line outs in the air and carried hard. Academy player Max Woolgar-Norton slotted in confidently with some brilliant high balls and well placed kicked.
Finally, captain Morgan Strong was selected as man of the match after a dominant and physical performance.
The Knights will now continue their preseason prep before the championship campaign starts on September the 21st with Ampthill at home.
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