By Mark W-J
November 3 2011

Three games without a win represents London Welsh’s worst run in the league since we lost Danny Wilson’s first four games in charge in November-December 2008.  The final defeat in that sequence came at Doncaster’s Castle Park, coincidentally our destination on Saturday afternoon.  Having lost their opening two games, the Knights have won five and drawn one of their last seven, and currently sit one point and two places behind the Welsh in sixth spot in the Championship table.

The two clubs have identical playing records after nine rounds of matches, but our extra losing bonus point keeps us ahead of Donny and fifth-placed Bedford, who drew 18-18 at Goldington Road three weeks ago.  All but five of the Blues’ points were scored by former Doncaster players, with fly-half Jamie Lennard - signed from London Irish in the summer following a loan spell at ODP last winter - kicking eight points, including the conversion of hooker Neil Cochrane’s try.  We have a couple of players of our own returning to their old stamping ground on Saturday; Hudson Tong’uiha spent two years with Donny before joining Welsh at the start of last season, scoring ten tries and a drop goal in his fifty appearances (46 starts), and Ed Jackson made the move south this summer after a single year in Yorkshire.  Winger Will Hurrell made a single appearance on-loan to Donny in January 2010 in a 17-10 home defeat to the Welsh, while openside Michael Hills, who has made just three league appearances this term, spent four years at Sale before joining us, despite being born across the great divide in Doncaster.  On the other side this weekend will be former Exile Mike Whitehead, who has moved back to Yorkshireafter a single season at Esher, despite leaving Rotherham last year to concentrate on his business interests in the south-east.

Doncaster were one of only two teams - Worcester being the other - to score a try in every one of their league fixtures (including play-offs) last season, yet after crossing the whitewash in 44 consecutive games they failed to register a try in the opening day defeat (12-38) at home to Bristol.  Two bonus points at the Mennaye a week later gave some hope that they were a better team than that defeat had suggested, before four straight wins over bottom-half opposition (Moseley, London Scottish, Leeds and Plymouth) saw them establish a foothold in the top six.  Last weekend’s results across the Championship took many people by surprise, not least of all the exploits of their fellow Yorkshiremen - Rotherham’s 44-6 win over leaders Bristol even surpassing Leeds’ 45-28 win at Bedford.  The relegated side are now up to 8^th in the table, joining Welsh, Donny and Bedford on five wins, while Saturday’s result was the biggest score conceded by the Blues at Goldington Road since Nick Easter scored two tries in his farewell appearance for Orrell in a 55-22 win on the final day of the 2003-04 season.

This is Doncaster’s seventh season at level two since they were promoted with Newbury (what ever happened to them…?) at the end of the 2004-05 season.  We’ve played each other 14 times, including the 2009-10 play-offs, with Welsh winning the last five to take a 7-5 lead in the series, with two games drawn.  We didn’t claim our first victory at Castle Park until the aforementioned 17-10 victory in January 2010, but have now won three in a row up there.  However, the 51-3 drubbing at Donny in the fifth round of the National Trophy in 2006-07 is our joint-heaviest ever in cup competition, the 48 point margin equalling the record set in a 67-19 third round defeat to Exeter two years earlier.  By contrast, our biggest win in the series was 29-3 at ODP in April 2008, and our five consecutive wins have been by a combined margin of just 47 points, with the Knights claiming three losing bonus points.

Welsh are the joint-second highest try-scorers in the Championship with 32, tied with Bedford and just one behind the Pirates. Doncaster are fourth on 27, ahead of the division’s top two sides, Bristol and Rotherham, and seventh-placedNottingham(23, 24 and 25 respectively).  Despite our reputation for free-flowing attacking rugby, no team has scored more tries through the forwards than the Welsh (13), although Bedford, Pirates, Donny, Moseley and Rotherham’s packs have each contributed eleven tries to the cause.  Irish winger Michael Keating is the Knights’ leading try-scorer with five, having started all nine games to-date after making just four appearances in the Magners League for Leinster in two seasons, three of them off the bench.  Top points-scorer with 57 is Tom Luke, a centre-cum-flanker in his time at the Pirates who has returned to Donny after a three year sojourn in the Duchy, while other names to watch include Kiwi centre Petala ‘PJ’ Gidlow, who made his name with Redruth before spells with Bees and Rotherham, winger Dougie Flockhart, scorer of 16 tries for Esher in the old First Division in 2008-09, and openside Latu Makaafi, a product of Bradford’s thriving Tongan community (no, really).

After nine rounds of fixtures Welsh are just one win away behind the league leaders,Bristol, with five wins and a draw to our credit.  The concern is that all five wins have come against teams currently sitting in the lower half of the table, and recent results mean that another defeat on Saturday could see us drop as low as sixth just a month after we sat proudly at the summit.  We all recognise that the best team doesn’t always win (© L. Jones), the league isn’t won in November, and all that matters is making the top eight come the end of February, but our highly-publicised aspirations of Premiership rugby are starting to look even more unrealistic than usual.


Note to self: must ask Father Christmas for a half-full glass to replace this half-empty one.