Doncaster Knights 24

Moseley 16

IF Moseley's immediate reaction to Jamie Lennard's 80th minute penalty was to lament the loss bonus it cost them, their more considered response to a deflating and frustrating evening at Castle Park will be to mourn the escape of the other three points that also slipped the net.

When they analyse this defeat they will conclude that even despite a near-shambolic first 40 minutes, they did enough to win this match and secure what might have been a season-defining victory.

That they came back from 21-3 down to trail 21-16 in the closing minute was a credit to their sheer strength of will because in truth, even if one solitary try was scant reward for all the promising positions they engineered, they never played well.

And so, in saying they did enough to win the match, they also did more than enough to lose it as once again they allowed their opponents to take control and build up a decisive advantage.

Just as they did last season, when they slipped 22-0 down, they started slowly and spent the second period chasing the game and ended up losing by eight points, the most irritating margin of defeat of all.

Credit to Doncaster, though, because having not won a Championship match since January, a run of 17 games brightened only by a draw with Cornish Pirates, they were hardly brimming with confidence.

But the hosts' conviction that this was a must win game shone through in the early exchanges as their forwards clattered over the gain-line and rocked the visitors who had taken an early 3-0 lead through Ollie Thomas's otherwise sub-par boot.

With their dual registered Leicester Tiger Keiran Brookes dominating the scrums and Moseley's lineout spluttering, the home side had all the advantage they needed to build their 18-point half-time lead.

However, it should not be ignored that the two Tyson Lewis tries Knights produced were eminently preventable from Moseley's point of view, particularly the second which saw the former Plymouth wing weave his way through midfield and passed three defenders to touch down from 50m.

By contrast whenever Moseley attacked in the first period, always through the forwards and never the backs, their set-piece or maul organisation let them down. Doncaster fully deserved their interval lead.

Mose showed much more conviction after the resumption but even with some decent ball and a string of penalties to build on, they still lacked the cohesion to split the home defence in any meaningful way.

Not helping was the fact they had been forced to reshuffle when Brad Davies went off injured in the 15th minute and Ollie Thomas was given the opportunity to mark his 200th appearance by coming in from the wing to fly half.

The utility man did not enjoy a happy evening as his string of successful goal attempts going into the game ended at 18 and his line-kicking was at times wretched.

Nevertheless Moseley managed to produce 13 unanswered points, through Thomas, Ben Pienaar's ridden lineout maul and three yellow cards shown to home forwards.

But their attempts at fluidity were like watching a drunk tie his shoelaces whilst wearing boxing gloves - never likely to succeed.

And so, when their scrum coughed up one last penalty on the final play, Lennard stepped up and delivered his team's first league win since January and denied Moseley anything to show for a worrying evening.

DONCASTER: Lennard; Flockhart, Mama (Tincknell 60), Simpson, Lewis; Luke, Silver (Hallam 24); Davies (McGovern 56), Buckley, Brookes, Challinor, Parsons, Kettle, Rawling, Planchant. Replacements: Bergmanas, Sowery, Boyde, Pailor

MOSELEY: Robinson B (Mogensen 58); Thomas, Hunt S, Carter, Hunt B; Davies (Hayter 14), Brown (Glynn 58); Thorp (Hilton 39), Wilkes (Caves 60), Voisey, Lawrence, Lockley, Mason (Pons 27), Robinson O, Pienaar. Replacement: Burrows


Referee: Martyn Fox (RFU)