One Point Enough to Edge Knights Ahead of Scottish at Castle Park

It wasn’t their best performance of the season so far, but the Knights gave it just enough to edge out London Scottish at Castle Park this afternoon in Round 9 of the Championship.

The capital-based opposition were ahead at half-time before the Knights scored three unconverted tries in the second half to win by a sole point.

The Knights did look to attack in the first half but were hampered by either small handling errors, infringements or lack of a viable supporting offload option.

On the other side of things, the Scottish maul defence was commendable – proving difficult for the usually destructive Knights pack to blast through when in close proximity of the line.

Scottish suffered disciplinary issues throughout the fixture with their first yellow card coming 16 minutes in as Mata Jurevicius was sent to the sin-bin for repeated infringements.

38 minutes ticked by in the encounter before any score was notched on the board. A lineout on the far side 5m out from the Knights line and Scottish went for the maul drive option. Hooker Harris Morris emerged from the pile with ball in hand to give to Harry Sheppard who secured the conversion.

The Knights rung the changes at half time as two thirds of their front row and a back-rower were substituted, looking for some more intensity and energy in their play.

It took time to bed-in the replacements, however, and Scottish were able to strike just 2 minutes into the second half. Sam Olver’s chip to the wing, meant for Maliq Holden, went high rather than long and after a harem-scarem dash towards the Donny line from a grubbered ball, Bryn Bradley was able to crash down upon the ball first to score for the visitors.

Sheppard secured the conversion, proving to be London side’s last points of the day was 37 minutes still left to play.

The Donny men got themselves into the points a few minutes later. Working in the Scottish 22, Billy McBryde got the ball out to Holden on the wing with a long, looping pass and the winger danced around the defenders to stretch over for the touch down of the try.

Less than 10 minutes later, the Knights’ second score came. Scottish broke off the back of their lineout but as Joe Margetts wrapped up an attacker in a tackle, the ball spilled out and George Simpson needed no invitation. The replacement Knights back snagged the ball and darted a good 40m for the line, and the score.

With 15 minutes left to play Scottish received their second yellow card of the day. This time it was Will Hobson sent to the sin as he took John Kelly in the air when the Doncaster back-rower got underneath a high and short chip kick from Luca Petrozzi.

Just 5 minutes later, Maurice Nwakor joined Hobson in the sin bin as he was shown a card for repeated infringements at the maul on the Scottish try-line.

The Knights capitalised immediately as the maul doggedly drove over and Will Holling was the man in charge of the ball for the score.

It was a tense closing couple of minutes as Scottish looked to have taken the ascendancy from a penalty but the Knights were able to turn the ball over with the clock in the red as Alex Dolly dutifully fed the ball back to his half-back partner, allowing Olver to boot the ball dead and secure the home win.

A narrow home win will still secure points in the table, however, the Knights will need another big week in order to build into the challenge of heading to Mennaye Field to take on Cornish Pirates next weekend.

A special mention must go to Tyson Lewis – running out at Castle Park today to a rousing ovation as the fan-favourite made his 200th Knights appearance.

Match Statistics

Knights XV | 15 Billy McBryde; 14 Maliq Holden, 13 Joe Margetts, 12 Connor Edwards, 11 Tyson Lewis; 10 Sam Olver, 9 Alex Dolly; 1 Ben Carlile, 2 George Roberts, 3 Jake Armstrong, 4 Ehize Ehizode, 5 Ben Murphy, 6 Sam Daly, 7 Jared Cardew, 8 John Kelly.

Replacements | 16 Will Holling, 17 Jake Pope, 18 Karl Garside, 19 Theo Vukasinovic, 20 Thom Smith, 21 Joe Green, 22 George Simpson, 23 Martin Sigren.

Tries: Holden, Simpson, Holling

London Scottish XV | 15 Conor Slevin; 14 Luke Mehson, 13 Cameron Anderson, 12 Bryn Bradley, 11 Cassius Cleaves; 10 Harry Sheppard, 9 Luca Petrozzi; 1 Maurice Nwakor, 2 Harri Morris, 3 Will Hobson, 4 David Bridge, 5 Mata Jurevicius, 6 Will Trenholm, 7 Jack Ingall, 8 Austin Wallis.

Replacements | 16 Villiami Taulani, 17 Jamie Drummond, 18 Dan Gamble, 19 Angus Southon, 20 Bailey Ransom, 21 Ed Hoadley, 22 Cameron Scott, 23 Noah Ferdinand.

Tries: Morris, Bradley

Cons: Sheppard 2

Yellow card: Mata Jurevicius, Will Hobson, Maurice Nwakor

Referee: Adam Wookey