With experienced players such as Simon Binns, Dan Hyde, Rob Whatmuff, Nathan Bland and Duncan Sayers sidelined this was always going to be a tough assignment against an expensively assembled Doncaster outfit. Nevertheless, an exuberant Otley side packed with local youthful talent defied many people's expectations and looked the more accomplished of the two sides for most of the game and can think themselves very unlucky not to have come away with at least a bonus point.

Having benefitted from a string of 3 early penalties, Doncaster soon found themselves "piggy backed" deep into Otley territory but a multitude of errors hindered Doncaster's advances.

Stamping by a Doncaster forward on half-way was surprisingly not met with a yellow card but Otley did use the penalty to attack the Knights' defences. Otley gained the upperhand in a lot of the personal battles throughout the afternoon, none more so than the impressive Samoan No.8 Maifea Maifea who breached the gain line with regularity. After 10 minutes, Maifea used his speed to round Tongan prop Ngalu Tau and release openside flanker Matt Stockdale who showed a clean pair of heals to finish the move off in the right hand corner. Deputy goalkicker Andy Brown narrowly missed the difficult touchline conversion.

The home crowd were clearly embarrassed and frustrated as Donny failed to make holes in the Otley defence and continued to make errors. Fly-half Mark Woodrow turned down a kickable penalty and then kicked the ball dead before blindisde flanker Netani Talei took a quick tap penalty only to knock on in the process.

Eventually Woodrow did manage to kick the ball into the corner from 10 yards away and allowed his forwards to set up a driving maul from the lineout. Glen Wilson emerged from the pile of bodies to take credit for the score but Woodrow could not convert using an awkward kicking style that resembles an unpleasant Ruby Murray induced technique.

Otley should have re-gained the lead but Brown miscued with an easy kick from almost in front which hit the upright. Nevertheless, Brown made amends soon after to put Otley 5-8 ahead at the interval.

Otley extended their lead after 50 minutes. With the referee playing advantage for off-side, Otley skipper Ian Shuttleworth chimed into the line and sliced through to leave the Knights defence trailing in his wake. He then calmly drew the last man to the supporting back-rower James Tiffany who used his pace and strength to crash over under the crossbar. Brown added the conversion and the better side were leading by 10 points.

Donny, now opting to go for goal from kickable penalties, reduced the deficit to 8-15 when Woodrow kicked a simple penalty. Otley were then reduced to 14 men when left winger Danny Smith was sin-binned for aiming a punch at Simon Bunting after the prop had held him back. Bunting's retaliation also went unpunished.

With Donny lacking any cutting edge and finesse in the backline they again had to rely on brute force. This time it was Jason Forster who was driven over for rugby's dourest type of score. The Knights' resident DJ was also now making every effort to lift the home side's spirits by playing recordings of crowd noise over the PA system. However, this did not have any immediate effect as Woodrow who missed the conversion to level the scores.

Donny were soon back in Otley territory and were denied a score when the completely un-marked right winger Donovan Van Vuuren could not re-gather the rolling ball from a cross-field kick. Unsurprisingly the third try came from another driven line out maul with Bunting flopping over the line. Woodrow missed with the extras but Donny led 18-15.

Otley almost regained the lead soon after in spectacular fashion. Shuttleworth fielded a high kick deep in his own half and set Smith free down the left hand side. The ball was transferred infield through the marauding Maifea and Tiffany but a last ditch tackle denied Steve Parsons from crossing in the right hand corner for what would have been a superb score. Parsons unfortunately had to leave the field with a shoulder injury sustained as he bravely dived for the line. Otley were then denied by the bounce of the ball for the second time in the match as this time Smith just couldn't manage to re-gain possession with a clear run to the line.

Otley continued to stand-up in the set piece despite the weight, height and experience disadvantages. In particular, Paul Williams excelled in the line-out while it was good to see Howard Parr return to less risky 'action' following his efforts for Queen & Country in Afghanistan.

Otley battled with great spirit right to the end but were disappointingly denied a bonus point as Donny went in search of one of their own. Last ditch defence thwarted Donny's efforts but, in the eighth minute of injury time, Otley ran out of defenders and Wes Davies went over again from 5 yards leaving replacement Jon Benson to kick a simple conversion which brought an end to the game.

Doncaster: Carter, Van Vuuren, Hunt, Davey, Davies W, Woodrow (Benson 63), Jones (Scully 69), Bunting, Phillips (Boden 70), Tau (Davies T 46), Gross, Cook, Talei (Earnshaw 53), Forster, Wilson.

Otley: Shuttleworth, Parsons (Andre 65), Dench, Mooney (Kitching 40), Smith, Monks, Brown, Livesey (Fear 52), Steele, Turner, Whitehead (Parr 54), Williams, Tiffany, Stockdale, Maifea (Edwards 73)

Referee: C Sharp

MATCH STATISTICS

Doncaster 25

Tries: Wilson, Forster, Bunting, Davies

Cons: Benson

Pens: Woodrow

Otley 15

Tries: Stockdale, Tiffany

Cons: Brown

Pens: Brown

Oscar's Gamestar: Maifea Maifea

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