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Lineout woe puts Knights back in bottom two
DONCASTER Knights dropped back into the bottom two of the Championship table following Saturday's 11-7 defeat at Rotherham. Titans leapfrogged over their derby rivals after dashing Knights' hopes of a fifth straight win at wet and windy Clifton Lane.
"The conditions were shocking but I'm not using that as an excuse," said Knights boss Lynn Howells. "They were the better team; we just didn't turn up.
"They adapted to the conditions better than we did.
"Our forward play was much better than Rotherham's and we scored a penalty try. It was our lineouts which let us down.
"I think that we had something like 11 lineouts and we won only about three of them. You are not going to win any game with those sort of statistics.
"We played into the wind in the first half and we came in 11-0 down. I thought that we had done enough in the first half to win the game in the second, but there were several things that didn't work out as we had hoped.
"Our kicking game wasn't as good as it could have been, We kicked a lot of ball straight out and were brought back from where we had kicked it.
"The only plus point, apart from our scrummaging, was that had we played like that earlier in the season we'd have been beaten by more ponts.
"We are a better side now and we are defending a lot better.
"It is one of those games which you could dwell on for several days or try and forget it and move on, and that is what we'll be doing.
"We've got an A-team game at home against Rotherham tonight and some of the senior players such as Anthony Carter, who have not got back in the first team following long injury lay-offs, will be looking to press their claims for a place in the side to play against Ayr in Sunday's opening British & Irish Cup game."
Skipper Glen Kenworthy is hopeful of being fit for next Sunday's game despite needing 19 stitches in a facial wound.
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Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light sleet
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light snow
Temperature: -6 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South east
