Post by Jamie Crawford on Oct 23, 2018 14:56:59 GMT
London Scottish preview sponsored by Porsche Centre Sheffield (www.porschesheffield.co.uk)
Round 9, Sat 27th October, 2018 – 3pm. The Athletic Ground.
The Knights must feel confident that they are regaining their form after narrowly losing 17-26 to ex-Premiership and unbeaten side London Irish. The Knights won the second half for the second week consecutively but they need to start the game as if it was the second half. The Irish didn’t score a point in the second half, which is a first for them this season. Yes we lost but we lost in style!
The other London exiles, London Scottish (who actually do play in London) beat Carnegie 5-17 last Saturday. Those results see the Knights remain tenth and London Scottish are seventh.
London Scots have only won one from three home games this season. The only team with a worse record is a team called Doncaster Knights who have won one from four. Our fortune is about to change as players return from injury and the mysterious illness has disappeared.
Scottish’s Fly Half Rory Jennings is the sixth highest points’ scorer in the Championship but far more significantly Rob Stevenson (Wing) is the Championship’s equal top try-scorer with eight tries over eight games. Stevenson was injured for most of last season but was named in the BUCS Super Rugby Team of the Year for 2016/17 and has also featured for Wales Students and GB Students in the World University 7s Championships two years ago. Stevenson scored a hat-trick this season, against Coventry on 13/10/18; definitely a player to be wary of.
Jennings and Stevenson are ranked seven and eight respectively in the list of this season’s Championship top scorers. The Cornish Pirates are the only other team in the Championship with two players in the top ten. Between them these two players have scored virtually half of Scottish’s points (just two fewer).
Over the eight games played the Scottish exiles have scored three more tries than the Knights. Nearly 70% of their try-scoring has been by Backs and over 72% of these Back’s tries have been scored by Wingers. This is not surprising given Stevenson’s try-scoring prowess. The Scottish Front Row and Back Row have each scored four tries; not remarkable by the Back Row but only four other team’s Front Rows have scored more than four tries, London Irish (13), Jersey (10), Cornish Pirates (8) and Bedford Blues (6).
Conversely the Scots have conceded two more tries than the Knights, 63% of these tries have been conceded to Backs. Ten tries have been conceded to the Wings (two more than Stevenson has scored), seven to the Front Row (three more than scored) and five to Centres (three more than scored).
The Scottish exiles are the Championship’s most disciplined team after only receiving one yellow card over eight games.
We still hold the record for giving away the most penalties; five away at Nottingham. It was notable that we didn’t give any penalties away to the Irish, so well done Knights.
Other fixtures they could impact our league position happening on Saturday:
London Scottish (7th, 5 points above) play us (10th)
Coventry (8th, 5 points above) welcome Carnegie (12th) to Butts Park Arena
Richmond (9th, 3 points above fly over to play Jersey (6th with a game in hand)
Hartpury College (11th, 3 points below) nip across to play Bedford Blues (5th)
If we beat Scottish, we will only go above them in the Championship if we score a try bonus point. Similar if Carnegie manages to beat Coventry but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen!
This is our last league game until we welcome Carnegie on 29th December. Next week sees us host Coventry in the first of six RFU Championship Cup games. “The current competition format is a group stage followed by a knockout stage. The group stage consists of three (roughly) regional groups of four teams each playing home and away matches. Group matches run for six consecutive weeks through November to December following a break in the RFU Championship league campaign. The top two sides in each group, plus the two best third placed teams, progress to the knockout stage, with the best ranked sides getting home advantage in the quarter-finals. The four winning quarter-finalists progress to the semi-finals with the winners playing in the final in May.” (Wikipedia)
The other three teams in our “(roughly) regional” group are: Coventry (H), Nottingham (A), Carnegie (A) in the order that we first play them.
It appears that only four teams in the Championship won’t reach the knock-out stages and results are key to getting home advantage.
A bonus-point win against the Scottish exiles could see us rise to seventh, a four-point win could see us rise to fifth and a loss could see us drop to eleventh.
COYK
DONNY, DONNY, DONNY…
Round 9, Sat 27th October, 2018 – 3pm. The Athletic Ground.
The Knights must feel confident that they are regaining their form after narrowly losing 17-26 to ex-Premiership and unbeaten side London Irish. The Knights won the second half for the second week consecutively but they need to start the game as if it was the second half. The Irish didn’t score a point in the second half, which is a first for them this season. Yes we lost but we lost in style!
The other London exiles, London Scottish (who actually do play in London) beat Carnegie 5-17 last Saturday. Those results see the Knights remain tenth and London Scottish are seventh.
London Scots have only won one from three home games this season. The only team with a worse record is a team called Doncaster Knights who have won one from four. Our fortune is about to change as players return from injury and the mysterious illness has disappeared.
Scottish’s Fly Half Rory Jennings is the sixth highest points’ scorer in the Championship but far more significantly Rob Stevenson (Wing) is the Championship’s equal top try-scorer with eight tries over eight games. Stevenson was injured for most of last season but was named in the BUCS Super Rugby Team of the Year for 2016/17 and has also featured for Wales Students and GB Students in the World University 7s Championships two years ago. Stevenson scored a hat-trick this season, against Coventry on 13/10/18; definitely a player to be wary of.
Jennings and Stevenson are ranked seven and eight respectively in the list of this season’s Championship top scorers. The Cornish Pirates are the only other team in the Championship with two players in the top ten. Between them these two players have scored virtually half of Scottish’s points (just two fewer).
Over the eight games played the Scottish exiles have scored three more tries than the Knights. Nearly 70% of their try-scoring has been by Backs and over 72% of these Back’s tries have been scored by Wingers. This is not surprising given Stevenson’s try-scoring prowess. The Scottish Front Row and Back Row have each scored four tries; not remarkable by the Back Row but only four other team’s Front Rows have scored more than four tries, London Irish (13), Jersey (10), Cornish Pirates (8) and Bedford Blues (6).
Conversely the Scots have conceded two more tries than the Knights, 63% of these tries have been conceded to Backs. Ten tries have been conceded to the Wings (two more than Stevenson has scored), seven to the Front Row (three more than scored) and five to Centres (three more than scored).
The Scottish exiles are the Championship’s most disciplined team after only receiving one yellow card over eight games.
We still hold the record for giving away the most penalties; five away at Nottingham. It was notable that we didn’t give any penalties away to the Irish, so well done Knights.
Other fixtures they could impact our league position happening on Saturday:
London Scottish (7th, 5 points above) play us (10th)
Coventry (8th, 5 points above) welcome Carnegie (12th) to Butts Park Arena
Richmond (9th, 3 points above fly over to play Jersey (6th with a game in hand)
Hartpury College (11th, 3 points below) nip across to play Bedford Blues (5th)
If we beat Scottish, we will only go above them in the Championship if we score a try bonus point. Similar if Carnegie manages to beat Coventry but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen!
This is our last league game until we welcome Carnegie on 29th December. Next week sees us host Coventry in the first of six RFU Championship Cup games. “The current competition format is a group stage followed by a knockout stage. The group stage consists of three (roughly) regional groups of four teams each playing home and away matches. Group matches run for six consecutive weeks through November to December following a break in the RFU Championship league campaign. The top two sides in each group, plus the two best third placed teams, progress to the knockout stage, with the best ranked sides getting home advantage in the quarter-finals. The four winning quarter-finalists progress to the semi-finals with the winners playing in the final in May.” (Wikipedia)
The other three teams in our “(roughly) regional” group are: Coventry (H), Nottingham (A), Carnegie (A) in the order that we first play them.
It appears that only four teams in the Championship won’t reach the knock-out stages and results are key to getting home advantage.
A bonus-point win against the Scottish exiles could see us rise to seventh, a four-point win could see us rise to fifth and a loss could see us drop to eleventh.
COYK
DONNY, DONNY, DONNY…
Good point though.
