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Cardiff at Knights in Irish Cup
DONCASTER Knights will play host to Cardiff in the league section of the British and Irish Cup on February 13th after the draw was finalised at Twickenham earlier in the week.
In the same league cup section will be another Welsh legend Pontypridd, Scottish Premiership Champions Ayr, local rivals Rotherham Titans and newly promoted Birmingham Solihull.
The five games will be played during the Autumn and Spring international season with the semi-finals on April 24 and the final, at a venue to be decided, on May 15.
The Championship fixture list has also been agreed with Knights having a tough start involving home games against Bedford and Cornish Pirates and away matches at Exeter and last season's National Cup winners Moseley.
The full fixture list will be published shortly. One of the good things is that the revamped fixture list ensures that Knights and local rivals Rotherham are not both at home on the same weekend.
A number of other significant issues were discussed at the Twickenham meeting as the clubs gave their unanimous response to the proposals received from the RFU on the organisation, regulations etc for the new Championship.
Committee confidentiality prevents me from commenting any further but, suffice it to say, both parties agreed wholeheartedly for the need for them to work in partnership for the benefit and success of the new Championship.
The only potential blotch on the horizon is the legal challenge being mounted by Premiership Rugby against the proposal for the winners of the Championship, and thus candidates for promotion, to be determined by a play-off arrangement.
The argument goes to mediation and I will report back as soon as I get any feed back on the result of the hearing.
Moving away from domestic issues, the British Lions have arrived in South Africa and play their first game this coming Saturday at 2pm.
The whole tour is going to be tough for the Lions and I will report on thoughts on the progress of the tour and forthcoming matches, as seen through the eyes of the Knights coaching staff and players during the next few weeks.
Although it seems like only yesterday when the Knights played their last match away at Exeter at the end of April, pre-season training for the players is almost upon us, and all of our players report back on Monday.
I suspect that most of them are worried about what is in store for them given their short recent experience at the end of last season with our new fitness andconditioning coach Scott Pearson so I imagine that they will report back somewhat fitter than in previous years.
Everybody is expecting there may be one or two notable exceptions with "Mad Dog" expected to lead the field after spending his month off socialising around the hot spots of Europe
Got a view? Add your comment below.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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